High school students in Hiroshima to send 1000 paper cranes to 193 world leaders
Aug. 23, 2012
by Rie Nii, Staff Writer
High school students living in Hiroshima have launched an effort called “Paper Crane Project.” They plan to send chains of 1000 paper cranes that have been offered to the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to 193 leaders of the world’s nations as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The project seeks to convey an appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons and call on world leaders to visit Hiroshima.
Henry Jiang, 19, a resident of Saeki Ward, solicited supporters for the effort. Mr. Jiang is the president of the Hiroshima Youth Committee of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, headquartered in Australia), an NGO. He called for cooperation through Facebook, a social networking service on the Internet. Twenty-three young people, mainly high school students, then gathered in a meeting room at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They placed chains of 1000 paper cranes offered by such schools as an elementary school in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture and a junior high school in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture into cardboard boxes, along with letters for the world leaders.
The letter explains the fact that A-bomb survivors are still suffering from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima 67 years ago and expresses concern over the roughly 20,000 nuclear weapons that exist in the world today. The letter also asks the recipients to provide a message on nuclear weapons as the leader of their nation and appeals for them to visit Hiroshima to see firsthand the effects of the radiation that was released by the atomic bomb.
The members of the project plan to ship the boxes containing the paper cranes and other materials through ICAN. When they receive replies from world leaders, they will share these messages on the ICAN website.
Koki Tsubakihara, 16, a second-year student at Hiroshima Gakuin High School, located in Nishi Ward, helped prepare the packages. “I would like the leaders of the world’s nations, who hold the power to make decisions, to know that high school students here are strongly opposed to nuclear weapons.”
(Originally published on August 20, 2012)
High school students living in Hiroshima have launched an effort called “Paper Crane Project.” They plan to send chains of 1000 paper cranes that have been offered to the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to 193 leaders of the world’s nations as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The project seeks to convey an appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons and call on world leaders to visit Hiroshima.
Henry Jiang, 19, a resident of Saeki Ward, solicited supporters for the effort. Mr. Jiang is the president of the Hiroshima Youth Committee of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, headquartered in Australia), an NGO. He called for cooperation through Facebook, a social networking service on the Internet. Twenty-three young people, mainly high school students, then gathered in a meeting room at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They placed chains of 1000 paper cranes offered by such schools as an elementary school in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture and a junior high school in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture into cardboard boxes, along with letters for the world leaders.
The letter explains the fact that A-bomb survivors are still suffering from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima 67 years ago and expresses concern over the roughly 20,000 nuclear weapons that exist in the world today. The letter also asks the recipients to provide a message on nuclear weapons as the leader of their nation and appeals for them to visit Hiroshima to see firsthand the effects of the radiation that was released by the atomic bomb.
The members of the project plan to ship the boxes containing the paper cranes and other materials through ICAN. When they receive replies from world leaders, they will share these messages on the ICAN website.
Koki Tsubakihara, 16, a second-year student at Hiroshima Gakuin High School, located in Nishi Ward, helped prepare the packages. “I would like the leaders of the world’s nations, who hold the power to make decisions, to know that high school students here are strongly opposed to nuclear weapons.”
(Originally published on August 20, 2012)
