October 30, 2015
“Toy doctors” are operating as volunteers across Japan with hopes to nurture children’s minds to take good care of things. Various kinds of toys are available to kids, but they tend to be easily thrown away when they are broken. This is more pronounced in today’s mass consumption society, but toy doctors believe that broken toys will be reborn only with a slight work of repair. They believe that toys can be long used, if treated carefully and gently.
F Net toy doctors carry with them small boxes containing miniature repair parts, such as screws, motors and speakers. Toys are returned to clients if they are fixed within the day, but otherwise, they are “hospitalized” or taken to doctors’ home for further repair.
The F Net group, led by Masatoshi Sugi, 73, consists of 28 toy doctors at
present. The group also has two female members, called “nurses” who serve as
receptionists at toy hospital events.The group belongs to the Japan Toy Hospital Association, established as a nationwide voluntary organization in 1996. The association had 1,184 toy doctors registered as of March 2015. As the association opens workshops for prospective toy doctors every three months, its members are gradually increasing, an association official said.
Sugi, who works as a toy doctor from 2008, believes that the toy hospital movement is contributory to the environmentally friendly 3 plus 2 R endeavor, which
means “reduce,” “reuse” and “recycle” as well as “refuse” unnecessary things
and “repair.”Sugi is one of about 10 “key men” recognized by the association as master toy doctors. They are in charge of organizing workshops and other major regional events.
A headache for the F Net group is the aging of its members, who are retired elderly persons. Their average age is 71, and the oldest of them is 80.
Sugi, a
former architect, fears that his group’s activity will not be
sustained without rejuvenation. This is why the group has put the “U-65” help
wanted ad on its website to get new members aged 65 or younger.Another concern for the group's toy doctors is that toy manufacturers appear less cooperative than ever toward their activity. When its members visited toy factories before to have parts for repair, factory people readily came up with necessary items, but they are recently asked to take a formal procedure to obtain necessary parts, said Sugi. “We are, so to speak, a natural enemy to them (toy manufacturers),” he said smilingly.
The group asks families with unnecessary or broken toys, mainly those driven with batteries, to leave them "to medicine" before discarding them. Repair parts can be recycled from these items.
F Net toy doctors wear a blue apron with a logo of the association when they attend toy hospital events.
They operate toy hospitals sometimes at events organized by local public welfare organizations for child-raising young mothers. These occasions are expected to have the F Net group better known to young families so that their toy hospital may be used more.One day, a young mother appeared with a toy she said was bought at a flea market, according to Sugi. The mother reservedly asked for repairing the toy, telling him it had cost only 50 yen.
The episode shows that there are young families living a steady life by reducing consumption and reusing as many items as possible.
Sugi recently contacted the Little Mama business group engaged in various child-raising related operations. and proposed cooperating with each other. Its Fukuoka branch regularly opens flea markets in Fukuoka and its vicinity. He hopes to open an F Net toy hospital in cooperation with Little Mama some time in the near future.
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