Handmade broom-making class -Asahi Community Center-

ほうきづくり教室 ＜朝日振興センター＞

Tadami Machi (Town) consists of three regions, Tadami, Asahi and Meiwa.

I visited the handmade brooms class in the Asahi community center.

One person teaches step by step how to make straw brooms from scratch.
They used some kind of handmade tool that I’d never seen before.
In some steps you needed strength in your hands so that the teacher kindly helped the participants.

While making their brooms, the participants could have some tea, chat and enjoy the friendly atmosphere.

The size of Tadami-machi (town) is 747.53 km² ※ and consists of 90% mountain forest.
Tadami-machi is divided into three regions, called Tadami, Asahi and Meiwa and each has their own distinctive community style and culture.

Each region in Tadami-machi has a community center and they offer various traditional craft classes such as vine crafting, Shimenawa making, indigo dyeing and Soba noodle making. The schedule of these classes can change depending on the year and the different regions,

※as much as 1.2 times of tokyo’s 23 wards.
Shimenawa：Decoration made of rice ears and hemp placed at the entrance or gates of a house during the New Year to ward off evil.

Some illustration information is available in About the Art（English）

Tadami, Fukushima pref.
Located in a heavy snowfall region in the south-west of Fukushima prefecture on the border with Niigata prefecture. Declared「Shizen shuto・Tadami（Capital of Nature・Tadami）in 2007.
Its natural environment and resources together with the life and culture of its residents were judged particularly valuable among the modern world environment,
In 2014 it was designated as a biosphere reserve under the Man and the Biosphere Program. UNESCO’s Japan committee calls them Eco Parks.