1000 Cranes
Thousand Crane Club now has a blog. Go there to see your cranes being delivered.
1000 Cranes BlogThousand Crane Club
Every year Hiroshima International School receives thousands of paper cranes from schools, organisations and individuals around the world. Our middle and/or high school students take these cranes to Peace Park, and hang them at the Children's (Sadako) Monument on behalf of the senders. It is with pride that we make this small contribution to peace.
We invite your school to take part. Read Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. Create your own project to petition for world peace. Or send your folded cranes to HIS. In return, we will send you a certificate of recognition and place your cranes in Peace Park at Sadako's monument. (Please note that there must be 1000 folded paper cranes and they must be strung together to be accepted for hanging. Otherwise they will end up in a box on the floor of the hanging booth.) We hope you will recognise your cranes in our blog.
Interested in how to fold paper cranes? There are instructions in the menu.
You can contact the 1000 Crane Club by writing to:
1000 Crane Club,
Hiroshima International School
3-49-1 Kurakake
Asakita-ku
Hiroshima 739-1743
Japan
History
The Thousand Crane Club was organized by Dr. Walter Enloe (former HIS principal), and Steve Leeper (Co-director of Hiroshima Center for Global Education) on October 25th, 1985.
The idea of this club originated during an HIS summer school class. The children and teachers were talking about Hiroshima and were discussing their feelings about war and peace, friendship, and nuclear weapons. The summer school students had been sent cranes folded out of paper from children in America and Canada, hoping that the students at HIS would place them at The Children's Peace Monument which is located in Hiroshima Peace Park. The Canadian and American children, like the summer school students, had read and discussed the story of "Sadako" (a girl in Hiroshima who died of leukemia as a result of atomic radiation, to which The Children's Peace Monument is dedicated - (see next article). The summer school students decided to string together all the cranes they had received together with their own cranes. They then took the cranes to be placed at the Children's Peace Monument.
The summer school students talked about what they could do to build the same kind of friendships and understanding, that was evident at their school in Hiroshima, among children all over the world. Their idea was to begin a Thousand Crane Club so that students everywhere could work together on a common project which would help to promote peace and understanding around the world.
In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, the HIS Student Council decided to take over the running of the Thousand Crane Club. Since then the HIS High School students have taken on the task of running the club as a service activity. Through the Thousand Crane Club they plan to encourage children the world over to fold 1000 paper cranes as a way of promoting peace and making friends.
During the 2005-6 school year, the 60th anniversary of the bombing, a group of High School students formed the first HIS Peace Mission, visiting Canada to give presentations to schools on Hiroshima's message to the world.