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Hiroshima students launch project to invite Obama to visit Hiroshima again

by Gosuke Nagahisa, Staff Writer

On June 16, the Prefectural University of Hiroshima announced a plan to invite former U.S. President Barack Obama to make another visit to Hiroshima. Students of the university will ask elementary school, junior high school, and high school students in Hiroshima Prefecture to write letters to Mr. Obama and will bring these letters to the United States to deliver them to the former president. The university says that, with the world in a precarious state when it comes to nuclear weapons, the fact that young people of the A-bombed city are taking action holds significance. Mr. Obama’s first visit to Hiroshima took place in May 2016.

For this “Obama Project,” students of the university will collect messages for Mr. Obama and translate them into English. They will also collect 999 paper cranes. If Mr. Obama visits Hiroshima again, they will ask him to fold one more crane to complete a set of 1,000 origami cranes. His wife, Michelle Obama, will also be invited. Masayuki Fukuoka, a guest professor at the university and a political scientist, originated the plan. Members of the project are now being recruited and, so far, 23 students from the university’s three campuses in Hiroshima, Mihara, and Shobara have expressed interest in taking part, with more students expected to join. They will invite the Obamas to visit Hiroshima this fall.

Hiromasa Hara, 20, a junior in the faculty of human culture and science at the university, is a core member of the project. “Mr. Obama has a large influence on the world. As a young person from Hiroshima, I want to do what I can to help realize world peace,” said Mr. Hara, a fourth-generation A-bomb survivor. Members of the project will visit Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki on July 19 and report on the launch of their campaign.

(Originally published on June 17, 2017)

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