Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today unveiled support for employee initiative in assisting the recovery effort in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11. Yokohama has inaugurated a program in which employees, including employees of Yokohama subsidiaries, can take part in on-site relief activities. Employees selected from among would-be participants will travel to the affected areas and participate in the recovery effort.

Twenty-eight employee volunteers took part in the first mission under the new program. They traveled to northeast Japan on July 11 and spent three days clearing mud from ditches and clearing debris from the surrounding land in the Miyagi Prefecture city of Higashi-Matsushima.

By April 28, Yokohama Group companies and their employees had donated a total of approximately 88,500,000 yen to the relief effort. That total comprises donations of 61,700,000 yen by Yokohama Group companies and their employees in Japan, including a 50,000,000 yen corporate donation by the parent company, and 26,800,000 yen by group companies and their employees in other nations. The companies and employees made their contributions mainly through the Red Cross societies in their nations.

Yokohama has also supported the recovery effort by furnishing relief supplies, by offering employment to persons who lost their livelihoods in the disaster, and by providing shelter to persons displaced by the disaster in municipal and prefectural housing rented at company expense. The volunteer-support program unveiled today is a measure for accompanying financial and material support with direct human interaction. It evidences the Yokohama commitment to achieving the speediest-possible recovery in the areas affected by the earthquake.