Can Community Environments Where Diverse People Connect While Remaining Different Contribute to Preventing Loneliness and Social Isolation? — Reflections from Community Practice in Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture, 2012–2026 —

Abstract

This practice report reflects on approximately fourteen years of community practice and learning undertaken by the author in Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture, from 2012 to 2026. It traces how these practices evolved over time and how they ultimately led HARMOS, a general incorporated association established in 2025, to adopt “addressing social isolation in human society” as its organizational purpose. This report covers practice up to September 2026. Its purpose is not to measure or verify the effects of any specific activity, but to trace a long-term process of practice, work, encounters, discomforts, and learning, and to organize what became visible through that process. It also aims to open these accumulated experiences—which have connected with a wide range of people and practices both within Japan and internationally—to more communities and practitioners, providing a foundation from which new practices can emerge in different local contexts.