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Junior Writers Reporting

Students of Hiroshima Jogakuin High School serve as peace guides

For 30 years, the students of Hiroshima Jogakuin High School in the city of Hiroshima have been serving as guides to Peace Memorial Park and other places for junior high and high school visitors from other parts of Japan and overseas.

This school year, Hiroshima Jogakuin students were guides for students from seven schools, including schools in Yokohama, Niigata, and the U.S. state of Hawaii. Prior to each time serving as a volunteer guide, the students engage in research on such things as the Children’s Peace Monument and the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. Then, when the day arrives, they act as guides for 90 minutes and do their best to use their own words in order to make their explanations easy to understand. At the same time, they feel it’s important to communicate with the visitors, not simply have a one-way interaction. Some students also share the A-bomb experiences of relatives, like their grandparents.

Saori Takemoto, 18, is a third-year student who has served as a guide six times. “My impact may be small,” she said, “but if the visitors come to think more about Hiroshima and peace, then I don’t feel quite so powerless.” Saori was particularly impressed by the reaction of a visiting student who told her: “It’s our responsibility to take action to make a better future.”

The students of Hiroshima Jogakuin High School are also involved in other peace activities as well, including gathering signatures in support of nuclear abolition and collecting the accounts of A-bomb survivors to post on the internet for others to access. (Yumi Kimura, 15)

(Originally published on March 5, 2012)

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