After last year’s triple disaster in Japan, a group of Alaskan fishermen started collecting funds to help rebuild the country’s decimated fishing industry. Earlier this month, the first of those donations made it to Japan.

The fishing village of Arahama lies on the outskirts of Sendai, a large city in northern Japan. Canadian filmmaker Linda Ohama was there last month.

“They’re trying to get back on their feet and they’re having to deal with a lot," Ohama says. "Number one, the loss of their fishing equipment and boats. And they’re dealing with the radiation factor.”

Earlier this year, Ohama helped connect the struggling fishermen of Arahama with the Alaska Fishing Industry Relief Mission or AFIRM. The fishermen were looking for 30 life jackets.

“The families were really stressed out that they would lose more of their men, that they wouldn't come home from fishing because they didn’t have any life jackets or any safety equipment.”

AFIRM donated $5,500 dollars for the life jackets, which were scheduled to arrive in Arahama last week. The fishing remains tenuous because of fears about radiation-contaminated seafood, but Ohama says the life jackets should at least help the fourth and fifth generation fishermen get back out on the water

“It’s not just their livelihood, but what keeps them alive.”

AFIRM also donated supplies to a fish market in a city just up the road. The Ishinomaki fish market was almost completely destroyed during the tsunami, but over the last year residents have started the slow process of rebuilding. AFIRM donated $137,000 for a forklift, a mid-size truck and a training machine for the local high school. According to the president of the fish market, the machine teaches students how the refrigeration units commonly used in fish processing plants.

When I talked to AFIRM secretary-treasurer Mark Vinsel last month, he wasn’t entirely sure of the machine’s function, but said the point of direct donations is giving people what they say they need.

“I don’t know too much about it, but it was explained to us that a large amount [sic] of the people who formerly held those jobs have been displaced, so they have a pretty big turnover in the manpower there and so they need to be able to train people and the local high school is a source of workers and they said that was an important part of their request. So, we followed with their advice and provided funding for that.”

AFIRM isn’t done donating. The group still has more than half of the $380,000 they collected. Vinsel says they always knew it would take a while before requests started coming in. They’re hoping more communities will get in touch in the near future.

Read more on AFIRM's website.