Chiba ‘salon’ to provide support for people with disabilities and their families

From Bonichi.com via Yahoo! Japan

November 23 2025

CHIBA – They want to create a place where people with mental or physical disabilities—and the families raising them—can talk, support one another, and take a moment to breathe. Tae Owada (55), who lives in Kokubu, Tateyama City, is preparing to open such a “salon.” Owada herself has a daughter with intellectual and physical disabilities. “I want to see the Awa region come alive as a community that supports welfare.” She is calling for the participation and cooperation not only of families of people with disabilities, but also of anyone willing to take hands with them and help expand the circle.

The salon Owada plans to open will be in a building in Hojo, Tateyama. Until early November, it was used for daily-living support services for people with disabilities and for an “after-school day service.” It is located across the road from Suwa Shrine in Rokken-machi, in a residential area near city hall and the east exit of JR Tateyama Station.

Owada’s eldest daughter, Aya (14), has severe intellectual and physical disabilities. In April, the family moved from Taitō Ward in Tokyo to Tateyama—Owada, her daughter, and her husband (65), who runs his own business. Aya is now in her second year of the lower secondary division at Awa Special Needs School.

After the move, when Owada went out for her part-time job and other errands, Aya used the day service provided in the building where the salon is now being planned. There, Owada and Aya met people with disabilities and families in similar circumstances, and they were able to build relationships of mutual support.

Due to a staffing shortage, the facility was forced to close. With no new purpose yet decided for the building, Owada received the owner’s understanding and permission to use it as a space for her salon.

As for the salon currently in preparation, Owada hopes that on weekdays it can be a place for parents, while after school it can be used together with children. She is also considering whether it might be possible to open the space on weekends for occasional workshops for children and their families.

Furthermore, she hopes to make it a place not only for people with disabilities and their families, but also for caregivers of the elderly, children who are unable to attend school and their families, and people who have moved to Japan from abroad—a place where anyone can drop in casually, have tea, chat, and share their worries with one another.

“I want to empower families—especially mothers,” Owada says with conviction. If mothers regain their strength, children feel secure. When children feel secure, households become more harmonious. Owada wants the salon to be the starting point for that.

She is currently seeking people to help through word of mouth, but is also broadly calling for support for the salon. “If each small effort comes together, it becomes ten, even a hundred. If there are people who understand what we’re trying to do, I hope they’ll lend us their strength,” she says.

For inquiries about the salon, contact Owada (phone: 090-4952-4930; email: tae.blue-wa@docomo.ne.jp).