Make Paper Cranes, Rebuild Communities in Japan:
On Friday, March 11, 2011, we know that Japan was hit by a powerful Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami. The world feels hopeless and we all struggle to comprehend what took place. There is little any single person can do to help rebuild their country and their lives but if each of us join together we will be strong. Its not just adults who struggle with what they are seeing on TV children see the destruction and want to help too. In response, Students Rebuild partnered with DoSomething.org, to ensure students worldwide have a way to support their Japanese peers.
Cranes are sacred creatures in Japanese culture. According to legend, anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. While anyone can contribute to the virtual mosaic on Facebook, our goal is to collect 100,000 origami cranes from young people to represent 100 wishes of support and healing for Japan. A list of wishes will begin to appear when we receive the first 1,000 cranes by mail.
Help Japan by making paper cranes. These simple yet powerful gestures will trigger a $200,000 donation from the Bezos Family Foundation - $2 for each crane received - to Architecture for Humanity's reconstruction efforts in Japan. Once we reach our goal of 100,000 submissions, the cranes will be woven into an art installation - a symbolic gift from students around the globe to Japanese youth.
Folding of paper crane become a part of popular culture when, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing developed leukemia from the radiation and spent her time in a nursing home creating origami (folded paper) cranes in hope of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese saying that one who created a thousand origami cranes would then be granted a wish. Legend goes that she died when she was 12 years old before she was able to fold 1,000 paper cranes. Her classmates from school took up her endeavor and finished folding them for her. An Elementary reading book was written about her that tells the story of her life.
With Nuclear Reactors so dangerously close to total meltdown and an announcement today by Japanese official that babies should not drink tap water from Tokyo it seems that this project becomes more and more fitting for the times. The lessons to be learned by children who take on this project are incredible and what a sense of accomplishment for a child who pledges to create a certain number of paper cranes and completes them as a way of connecting with children in Japan.
Where you can send your paper cranes in order for them to count towards the donation and to be quilted together to form hundred strings of 1,000 cranes for each of the hundred wishes. If you team up with friends or use this as a class project and fold more then 50 the organization will send you a stamped envelope! info@studentsrebuild.org
Mailing Address for your cranes:
Students Rebuild
1700 7th Avenue
STE 116 # 145
Seattle, WA 98101