Contributions from people overseas who are sharing the message of Hiroshima

(5)Conveying the horror of warby Tomoko Sato

Hola!

That's "Hi!" in Spanish. I'm working as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers to help support villages in Ecuador through tourism. As the name implies, Ecuador means Equator and the Equator runs through the country. The people of Ecuador don't know much about Asian countries on the other side of the world. Some don't even know that Japan and China are different countries.

High school students taking notes as they look at a poster showing damage caused by the atomic bomb. (March 1, 2007)

Tomoko Sato

Born in Tokyo, she worked at a travel agency after graduating from university. In April 2005, she became a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. She has been working in the Department of Tourism in the city of Roha, where she promotes local tourism to visitors.

On March 1, 2007, I organized an exhibition called "The Atomic Bomb and the Road to Peace" in the city of Roha in southern Ecuador. About 600 people came to this exhibition. In Japan, we have a chance to learn about the horror of nuclear weapons in our schools, but people in other countries don't often have these opportunities. Many children, in fact, can't even go to school.

The exhibition was targeted to high school students and it consisted of a film about the atomic bomb and a display of A-bomb photos. Many students said things like, "I heard about the atomic bomb, but I didn't really know what it was like." They looked closely at the photos, as if they couldn't believe this event had actually occurred.

Ecuador doesn't possess nuclear weapons. However, there are more than 27,000 nuclear warheads in the world today, enough to kill everyone on earth. Even if there are no nuclear weapons in our own environment, we cannot be indifferent about them.

I'll share some of the students'impressions

-My heart hurts when I imagine the victims, their families, and the survivors. It made me feel the preciousness of life and that I should treasure each day I live. (female, 18)

- War is not the way to solve conflicts-it just makes matters worse. The exhibition today was a good opportunity for me to think deeply about these issues. (female, 21)

-I was shocked and dismayed. Although the development of science has contributed so much to human progress, we must abandon nuclear weapons in order to prevent the suicide of the human race and bring peace to our world. (male, 45)

I set up a booth in which visitors could try making origami cranes. Many visitors made cranes and offered the sentiment, "I want to send a prayer to Hiroshima." If more people could become inspired about peace, I think we could create a world without nuclear weapons.