A Japanese startup will introduce an all-terrain electric wheelchair in 2026 that allows users to climb and descend stairs, and board trains and buses without assistance, with plans to develop a model that can navigate escalators. The wheelchair developed by Lifehub Inc., which normally drives on four wheels on flat surfaces, has caterpillar tracks to negotiate stairs, slopes and uneven ground.
he Japan Branch of Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) has announced that Shoji Nakanishi, a former Chair and long‑serving Standing Committee member of DPI Japan, died on March 26, 2025. Nakanishi founded Japan’s first ‘Independent Living Centre’ in 1986.
The Japan Branch of Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) has announced that Shoji Nakanishi, a former Chair and long‑serving Standing Committee member of DPI Japan, died on March 26, 2025. Nakanishi founded Japan’s first ‘Independent Living Centre’ in 1986.
Barrier Free Japan has learned further details of the situation surrounding the female student expelled from Musashino Higashi Gakuen, specifically that the female student forced to write an apology was expelled when she was just about to graduate.
On the 2nd, an event to deepen understanding of autism and developmental disorders was held in front of Hakata Station in Fukuoka City.
In 2024, at a vocational high school run by Musashino Higashi Gakuen in Musashino City, a male board chairman was sent for indictment on suspicion of coercion for forcing a female student, then in her third year, to write an apology letter. On the 2nd, the Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office announced that he would not be prosecuted. The decision is effective as of March 31, and no reasons have been disclosed.
武蔵野東学園では、松村謙三氏が理事長に就任して以来、教員の大量辞職や不透明な運営方針が続き、保護者の間で不安が広がっている。2025年には、生徒が松村氏への批判を理由に退学処分を受けるも、その後撤回された。また、新入生の保護者に対し、違反時に損害賠償を求める可能性がある誓約書の提出が求められたことも波紋を呼んでいる。保護者らは、Change.orgで請願活動を行い、「学校が深刻な危機に陥っている」と訴えており、記事執筆時点で2,241人が署名している。
It was revealed at a press conference on March 31 that staff members at the ‘Nakai Yamayurien’, a prefectural support facility for persons with disabilities in Nakai, Kanagawa Prefecture, had verbally abused and dragged users.
Parents of students attending Musashino Higashi Gakuen raised concerned about the appointment of Kenzo Matsumura as early as February 2024. In their change.org petition, parents express their concerns that the school as a “safe haven for our children is in a deep state of crisis, and with an ever growing concern about the future of our school”.
Musashino Higashi Gakuen is an educational corporation that has two kindergartens, an elementary school, a junior high school, and a higher vocational school under its umbrella and is known for its inclusive education model, in which children with and without autism study together. A teacher at Musashino Higashi Gakuen says this with a grim resolve: “For the sake of the students and parents who remain, even though the school has had so many problems since the president was replaced, all the remaining teachers have no choice but to do what they can.”
Barrier Free Japan