Are you trying to strike a balance between being a good worker and a good parent?
Are you struggling to find a childcare service that you can afford?
AsMama is an online service that allows your neighbourhood to support your parenting. But a SNS network that is built up within your local community.
AsMama literally means “become like Mother”, which suggests a society with parents that their children can look up to. Once registered, you can ask for help, but you can also be the one to help. About parenting, and also to allow local neighbourhood to meet each others. It simply goes both online and offline!
　

Your friends and your neighbours are those who look after your child

AsMama is a network between workplace, neighbourhood, learning community, schools, friends and parental community.
Although AsMama is a community service, it is NOT a volunteer service.
For an hour, it is charged for JPY500. Keiko Koda, who established AsMama in 2009 explains,

If something is necessary to the world, we have to put a value on it. That is the only way that a sustainable ecosystem can be established for people who provide the service, and the people who accept the service.

Keiko Koda
In additional, by putting a money value onto the service, it provides an alternative to mothers who wish to change their working pattern. For those who would like to spend more time with family, or are looking for more flexible work-style, AsMama can be a consideration for their new career.
In our past article Fathering Japan, we see how the participation of father would release stress in a family. Likewise, AsMama suggests that “asking for help” is essential, and society can take part in raising a confident child. As Koda pointed out,

It is such a normal thing to feel stressed while raising a child. It is also very normal that women would want to work while being a mother, and for the family to pursue the lifestyle they want through the income of mothers. A child will not be happy if the parents are not.

The AsMama operation team manages to get sponsorship of venues and materials from companies such as Isetan and Shiseido, and their parenting ecosystem is getting stronger.
Meanwhile, the team is trying to expand this ecosystem to other social services, such as elderly nursery care, or families that are facing disability. They were awarded a Bronze prize at Stevie Awards Most Innovative Business in 2013, and the team is looking for opportunity to work overseas too.

But maybe what is important, is that AsMama tells us that asking for help can be a way to generate our society. Our generation is one that changes rapidly, but also one that allows diverse lifestyle.
AsMama has started an ecosystem that allows more freedom between work and parenting, and the lifestyle you want can be one that support each others’ lifestyle as well.
[via Greenz.jp written by Ayane Ito]
[English Text by Katia Wong]

[Editor: Kota Suzuki]

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