Albirex Niigata’s project of“Save the lives of Niigata. Activities to raise awareness in suicide prevention” has been awarded the 2021 J.LEAGUE SHAREN! Awards・Social Challenger Award. What is the purpose to approach a long-term issue of suicide preventation in SHAREN!? What kind of value does Niigata’s project provide to the community? In order to dissect the attractiveness of this project, we sat down with local government workers that works daily with the community and also the staff of the club and others who supported to make this happen.

Speaker
Albirex Niigata Business Division Public Relations Department Hometown Representative  Takuya Murayama
Niigata Prefecrture Welfare Insurance Department Life and Mind Support Room Yumi Hatano

Listener
Niigata City Office Kazuki Inaba
※ This interview article has been taken in charge by “Online Council” where the faithful local government workers gather (Operated by General incorporated association Yonnana Kai).

■Activities to expand the gatekeeper of life

Do you know the existence of a gatekeeper?

It’s a person that’s able to acknowledge the sign of a possible suicide and is able to provide the appropriate support. That requires to be able to recognize people that’s having concerns, reach out to them, listen to their stories and lead them to needed supports and follow up. They are sometimes called the the “Gatekeeper of Life.”

In the project of “Save the lives of Niigata. Activities to raise awareness in suicide prevention,” our focus was toward more people acknowleding the existence of gatekeepers and to be aware of the issue of suicide prevention.  

In August of 2020, we held a “Gatekeeper Workshop” directed toward about 40 club and academy staffs. It’s still available to watch on YouTube. Also using the tagline“Save Niigata’s Lives”we used goalkeeper Kazuki Fujita’s image in creating brochure of suicide prevention and promoted during home games to increase awareness.  

We tried to raise awareness by pairing the “Gatekeepers” that protects lives and “GoalKeepers” that protect goals.

■Activities to weave human relationship

Mr. Murayama from Albirex Niigata talks about how this activity has started. During a period of time when many people were working remotedly due to COVID-19, he saw a news report stating that number of suicides has significantly decreased in April of 2020 compared to the previous year.  

“As we all experienced a new virus that none of us had dealt with before, games were postponed and our activities were limited. Our club was re-thinking on what we can do for the community. While we were gathering many infortmation, what caught my eyes were the issues regarding suicides. It’s encouraging that the number of suicides are decreasing, but when I heard the reason may be from decrease in human interaction due to COVID-19, I was really surprised. The issues and concerns that lies in human relationship was significantly high. Through many hometown activities, Albirex Niigata had continued to weave human relationships. Even regarding the issue of suicide, as a club we felt there is something we can do by approaching it from creating a deeper and stronger human connection. Thinking in that way, we decided to reach out to Niigata prefecture Welfare Insurance Department Life and Mind Support Room.”（Mr. Murayama）

The percentage of suicide deaths in Niigata has continued to be one of the worst in the nation. In order to approach this, there have been public awareness activities that were concentrated monthly and in March there was the Suicide Prevention Enhancing Month and in September there was the Suicide Prevention Promotion Month.

Due to the effect of COVID-19, there were concerns that suicide numbers may increase and that’s when Albirex Niigata approached whether they can do anything together.

“When they first approached us, I was stuck on what we can actually do together.However, Albirex Niigata had its roots in the community and their relationship with the citizens were very close.There may be some hurdles in approaching the issue as a professional football club, but rather than putting out a message to prevent suicide, we felt it may work to act together in putting out a message in creating human connection and supporting each other. Also, in Niigata the numbers of suicide among people in their prime were significant and Mr. Murayama mentioned that the age group is similar to the people that attends their games. It may not be a direct message, but saving people’s lives and always being aware of the people around you is a perspective I felt that was going to be easier for the message to get across.”（Ms. Hatano）

As we continued to have multiple discussions, we decided on sending a message of “Save the lives of Niigata” and to have a broader perspective in preventing suicides. This had a strong affinity with the message that the club holds.

Although it’s about suicide prevention, when we are trying to raise the awareness, the key would be for each and everyone to think about the issue as their own.That’s where the meaning of working this project with Albirex Niigata becomes important. From a supporter’s prespective the players and clubs are very close to them. If the people that are close to them sends a message, it may be effective in people thinking as an issue of their own.

What kind of response was there from this activity? Although it’s difficult to directly hear the feeback from the citizens, there were staffs that talked about it.

“A player that had Niigata roots were used for this project and a staff that knew that player since childhood reached out to me about it.”(Ms. Hatano）

■ Continuosuly spread the information as an ally

Albirex Niigata has worked along in a prefecture movement to elimate the number of people who look the other way on bully.（https://www.albirex.co.jp/news/60897/ ） For that reason, we were planning to hold the gatekeeper workshop directed toward the academy staff who are in charge of middle and high school kids. However when we were planing along the details of the workshop with the instructors, Shibata City Regional Promotion Bureau Health and Welfare Enviornment Department Ms. Mihiko Nakamura and Seiromachi town office staff Ms. Kana Mitobe, we felt this should be directed toward the club staff as well. Ultimately it ended up being towards 40 clcub and academy staffs. We were scheduled to conduct this as a group workshop, but to prevent the spread of COVID-19 we ended up doing this as a Zoom online workshop.

The four roles of a gatekeeper is recognizing, reaching out, listening and connecting. The goal of listening is not to actually solve the problem, but to think of their feelings and listening to their stories. Professional sports club can be the communication hub and that’s an area where they can play a big role. After experiencing the workshop, they were able to realize the significance.

“Listening to the stories during the workshop led to learning many things. During the workshop, there was an inspirational quote by the instructor when she mentioned that “Physical and mental health of the people who are involved in the daily operation of the Albirex Niigata will provide a message to the kids and the people in the community.”The project may be centered around the players, but once again it made me realize the importance of us staff gaining knowledge and being healthy.”（Mr. Murayama）

Suicide prevention is a long term issue and it’s not something that can be solved immediately. However it’s important to continue to send out the message.

“Even if Albirex Niigata becomes involved, it doesn’t mean there will be immediate results. As Niigata prefecture disability welfare division and the others have continued this activity, we were able to have the opportunity to be involved. We have done nothing to take credit for and yet we feel where we can help is putting out the information.The decision to enter “SHAREN! Awards” was to have an opportunity to tell the issue we are facing to a larger population. We feel that entering into the awards and reaching to a larger population is one way to raise awareness.” (Mr.Murayama) 

Ms. Hatano also mentions about the importance of continuation and also the value in Albirex Niigata joining as a partner which takes the role in continuing to address the message.

“All these years, even though we have continued to raise the public awareness, the suicide rate has been higher compared to other prefecutures. We have been feeling the urgency to continue working harder toward this issue. With Albirex Niigata joining our actitivty, we were able to reach to the people who we haven’t in the past and inform the role of the gatekeepers. We are thankful that Albirex Niigata has been addressing the issues and also the importance of life to the people that are interested. Professional football clubs has a significant reach and we feel that these type of activies are very important (Ms. Hatano).

Things are limited in what a government can do. What is important is to work with many partners such as Albirex Niigata and attack the issue with the prefecture becoming a whole.

People tend to be impacted by the people you are fond of. For the people in Niigata they are fond of Albirex Niigata and what the club state as important may lead to many people taking their time to think about the issue. We were able to acknowledge how much the staff of Albirex Niigata is thinking about the importance of our society.

Mr. Murayama states, that they not only look for information regarding football, but what is going on in the society.

“It’s not just about football. As we continue to be part of Niigata’s community, we haven’t been able to cover all things in the community and there are many more issues we haven’t been able to see. We feel it’s important to work together toward those issues. (Mr. Murayama)

■Finding the issues and working together with all cities, towns and villages of Niigata prefecture

From now on how are they going to expand the activities of raising the awareness of suicide prevention.

“It has only been a year since starting, so we would like to continue expanding the circle from this activity. From now on it’s just not about raising awareness, but we would like to think of what else we can do together. Before working together, I always thought asking for a collaboration with a professional sports club was a difficult task. But now that we have gotten a chance to work together, we were able to find out how dedicated they were toward this project. Even though it was during the middle of the season, they would come to the meetings prepared and well aware of the current situation and measures the prefecture has in place. We were able to share our request and they were flexible in answering. It made us realize that the important thing is to first bring it up.” (Ms. Hatano) 

Mr. Murayama also emphasizes on the importance of working long-term.

“As Ms. Hatano mentions, it’s important to first of all commit to the activity long-term. This is an issue that will continue to be there and it’s not something that we suddenly work on because it becomes a hot topic. There are things you won’t be able to see unless you keep on doing it. In the short run we would like to see what we can do for the Suicide Prevention Promotion Month in September. By receiving this award, we hope to work with the people that have found out about this social issue and, focus our activities toward September. We would like to borrow the minds of not only the people in the football industry, but people from a variety of different proffesions.（Mr. Murayama）

“Sharen! Award” is an opportunty to use the power of J.LEAGUE to deliver to many people. All activities are seemingly shapinging up the keyword of SHAREN!“Use J.LEAGUE! For the society.”It’s impressive as they are always trying to think of using all opportunities toward this.   

In July of 2019, Albirex Niigata has made all cities, towns, and villages in Niigata prefecture as part of their hometown. Also from this season, they have divided the prefecture to seven areas and appointed players to each. This project is called the “Local Support Players” (https://www.albirex.co.jp/news/60428/）and the club have approached government and local companies. From the government perspective, the hope is for a new project to be born by informing the club about the issues in the communities.

Interview Postscript

I was approached by the online council where I am a member of and was able to interview my favorite team in Albirex Niigata on their SHAREN! Awards recognition.

Since I heard that Albirex Niigata always question themselves on their reason of existence, I tried to think about the reason of existence for local government.  

Local government works on different projetcs aiming to create an enviornement where everybody is able to live happily. That’s the reason, why we administrative officers work everyday. However in order for all people to continue to live happily, there are many issues that cannot be solved just by the local government. The issue of suicides may be one of them.

I have heard about the existence of “gatekeepers” before conducting this interview. That’s not because I am an administrative officer, but the reason was because I love Albirex Niigata. I followed the club on twitter and probably saw the information there. Information that is provided by somewhere you love sinks in as if its your own. That’s what I was able to realize from this sequence.

I feel that people being able to receive the information as their own is very important for the community.

The local government which deals with the communities’ issues may have a difficult time in sending out the information in a way that is easy for people to understand. However if a club like Albirex Niigata which has many enthusiatic and spontaneous supporters sends the message, there may be more people that would receive the message as their own. This may be one way to make the people living in the community happy and as an administrative officer it was really an eye-opener.

For this project, it was Albirex Niigata that approached the prefecture’s social issues. It should be the other way around. The local government should open up the information on what social issues they are facing and which may lead to an organization like the Albirex Niigata to catch interest.

Also as the administrative officer mentioned, the local governement shouldn’t hesistate on asking a professional football club. What is important is to approach themselves and try to find a way to solve the social issues together.

Immediately I decided to approach Albirex Niigata’s staff and discuss about the way to solve the social issues in our transporation area.Increasing these type of opportunities and people having independence would be a happy sight for people in Niigata in becoming more happy. Thank you for this great opportunity.