Students of the Government Town Upper Primary School here are busy crafting origami cranes. They have to send 1,000 of them to the Sadako Sasaki memorial in Hiroshima, built in honour of a Japanese girl who died of leukaemia, believed to be the after-effect of the bombing of the city in 1945.
School Principal S. Ajayakumar said the project was taken up through a formal agreement his school had with the Hiroshima International School.
The memorial
The 1,000 cranes made by the students will be submitted at the memorial as a garland following which the name of the school will be inscribed there.
The memorial was constructed with funds contributed by 3,100 students from nine countries. The Town UPS will become the first school in the State to send Sadako cranes to Hiroshima.
When the atom bomb ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Sadako was just two years old. Though the bomb claimed numerous lives, Sadako was not injured. For another 10 years, she lived a normal life. One day in 1955 she fell ill and was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Many people in Hiroshima contracted leukaemia which was then nicknamed ‘atom bomb disease.’ The disease killed many. Sadako was admitted to the Red Cross Hospital. Her roommate there told her the Japanese story that anyone who folds paper to create 1,000 cranes will be granted a wish.
Crane club
Sadako earnestly engaged in the act but she died after completing 644 cranes in 1955. Her crestfallen classmates then crafted the remaining cranes and buried the 1,000 cranes with her.
They then formed the Sadako Paper Crane Club in her honour and initiated moves for the memorial which was installed in 1958.
Students of a Kollam school are making paper cranes which will adorn a much-cherished memorial in Hiroshima.
