The sixth graders of Kanaike elementary
school had a year of “Sending a Message of Peace” in 2013. The first semester,
they visited Nagasaki as a school excursion and this experience motivated them
to discuss how they could send a message of peace in their school life as the
leading grade of the school.
They realized the importance to accept other
friends’ ideas in their daily school life and organized a committee to create a
Kids’ Guernica peace painting. Finally, they exhibited it in front of their
school gymnasium for the memory of their graduation.
They collected each idea of peace painting among
them and discussed how they could express their wish for peace in a painting
again and again. Then, they decided to make a painting to show the birth of
peace through connecting their hearts and resonating them. A phoenix was
composed as a symbol of peace flying from their school with a paper folding
crane to connect all living things. They decided who colored which part of the
painting by themselves and worked together to complete it.
The painting was displayed as a stage
curtain on the day of their graduation ceremony. Their families and many
participants from their community really appreciated it with a big applause.
The sixth graders’ hearts became one
through all the process of this Kids’ Guernica project from the planning to the
finishing by themselves and they could send a message of peace to many people. 
