Folding origami isn’t just a hobby, it’s a symbol for peace, a symbol that was once made to show that peace is not only missing in war but represents the unity of others.
Recently Akins welcomed a guest speaker from Japan, Kazuko Naganeo, who came and shared the story of Sadako Sasaki and the thousand paper cranes.
With the help of reading teacher Debra Kelt, they went from class to class to share her story.
“We started off sharing the story with my reading classes, then other English classes, then to any class she could get to share the story in,” Kelt said.
Naganeo started the story with the gruesome bombing attack of Hiroshima where Sadako was hit with an atomic bomb that had been dropped.
“It was a new year, so I thought lets do origami, the paper crane stands for peace, so in every paper crane that was made the students would write a hope for the new year inside of it,” Kelt said.
In the story, Sadako made 644 paper cranes failing to reach 1000 cranes, which in ancient Japanese history if someone was able to reach 1000 cranes they were granted a wish.
“Kazuko and I got together and started to plan to make cranes to send to foundations of Hiroshima bombing and also to the recent Connecticut school shooting,” Kelt said.
“It was my idea to start making the paper cranes and it also gave her a chance to go as many classes and teach as much as possible about the Hiroshima bombing,” Kelt said.
Sophomore Natalie Flores was one of the students who got a chance to make paper cranes and hear the story of Hiroshima.
“When I heard the story it made me feel sad to think that so many people died and suffered from that,” Flores said.
Within the first two months of the bombings between 90,000 to 166,000 people died.
“It is so upsetting just to think of the pain and the suffering that these families and friends had to go through,” Flores said.
Sophomore Daisy Paz also participated in paper crane making. She believed it shares hope and peace to those who were impacted from the Hiroshima bombing and the Connecticut shooting.
“I felt really impressed because even though we are so far away we can still connect with them and their story and make these cranes that represent the hopes and dreams these people had, to spread peace,” Paz said.
The Connecticut school shooting was a tragedy where 20 children and six adult staff members were fatally shot on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Sophomore Alyssa Alvarado was moved by when hearing these stories and thought making paper cranes would be a great inspiring idea to do.
“These stories impacted my life so much I shared these heart breaking stories with my family, friends and my church, I felt so horrible knowing that I live in this country and how we could do such a horrible thing to Japan, it was just shocking,” Alvarado said.
The Hiroshima bombing showed how strong this little girl came to be how hard she tried to reach a goal and how deep and passionate she was to spread peace.
“The story of the “A Thousand Paper Cranes” was really sad but moving, she started something great over there and that shows that people can make a change, even if it’s all by yourself,” Alvarado said. “Just by sending these paper cranes shows that there is still time for change.”
