Kids' Guernica at Shimada Elementary School, Osaka, Japan

March 2014
Sixth grade students learned a lot about peace during their school excursion in May and they expressed their message of peace in paintings for International Peace Poster Contest in July. And then they decided to participate in Kids’ Guernica project to send their message of peace to all over the world and chose a few paintings among all of their peace poster paintings for the project. From November seven candidates were selected as executive committee members and they initiated to make a draft painting for Kids’ Guernica. The committee members pasted drawing papers together to make the preliminary drawing during break time and after school. Each of all the sixth grade students a painting of balloon, clover or white swan on a sheet of drawing paper and cut it out during art class. 
In January, all the sixth graders painted the huge preliminary drawing and pasted their paintings of balloon, clover and white swan on it. The executive committee worked elaborately to modify it independently during break time and after school. As the final finishing, they added three dimensional big ribbon and woolen strings to connect each balloon and completed their Kids’ Guernica in the end of February. 
The peace painting was displayed in their gymnasium for teachers and parents as well as other students of the school and in March. The impressive painting was used for the front cover of their graduation album. 
All of the 45 sixth grade students worked together enthusiastically for this project without any senior students guidance. Especially, the committee member students created the first rough drawing and painted it even during break time and after school independently with little help of class teachers. The students’ strong will of creating their own peace painting and their collaborative commitment for the final event of their elementary school life really moved the two class teachers. This unforgettable experience will remain as a very important part of their mind and definitely be a base for the better future.
Message
This peace painting consists of a huge rainbow, hearts, many balloons, clovers, big hands and white swans. National flags, tasty foods and smiling faces in various countries in the pictures of balloons express a happy world with a huge beautiful rainbow for the background. The balloons on the right and left upper corners show something undesirable such as a sad face and a weapon, which white swans with hearts, “love”, are trying to take out. The lower part of the painting is covered with many four-leaf clovers symbolized happiness. Each clover and balloon has different shapes and it shows individual differences. All the strings from balloons are tied with a ribbon on a huge heart “love” represents a wish for one world and also the strings are gripped by hands of different ethnic groups. This big peace painting is created by participant students ’various wishes for peace.
Sixth Grade Class Teachers: Hidetaka Okui and Tomomi Oka

Kids' Guernica at Nishikio Elementary School in Japan

March 2014

Nishikio Elementary School in Nabari City, Mie Prefecture of Japan was closed in the end of March 2014.  To commemorate the closing of this school, the last sixth grade students created a Kids’ Guernica peace painting. It shows their school life, and the nature and history of their locality as well as their message of peace.

Kids' Guernica at Kanaike Elementary School in Japan

 

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.  

Kids' Guernica at Hartstern Elementary in Louisville

A wonderful peace painting was created by 60 fifth grade students at Hartstern Elementary in Louisville, KY, U.S.A.

Kids' Guernica in Bangalore, India

December 28, 2013-January 04, 2014

A Kids’ Guernica workshop was held in Bangalore, India. The new peace painting was created by Indian Children who had experienced child labor and Japanese children from Fukushima. It was a good opportunity to know each other for both Indian and Japanese children through the process of creating a huge peace painting. Indian children knew the serious situation of the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima and Japanese children realized the hardship of child labor. The workshop was organized by Born Free Art School and Born Free Art Japan.

Kids' Guernica in Barquisimeto, Venezuela

 

New Version of Kids' Guernica at Ichioka Junior High School, Osaka, Japan

November, 2013

A new Kids’ Guernica was completed by 130 students of the eighth graders of t Ichioka Junior High School in Osaka, Japan and it was displayed at their school festival. As a part of peace education, first, they studied about inhumanity of bombing such as in Guernica and researched a case of Liberian Civil War to understand how innocent children were always victimized during any war time. After that, each of them expressed a message of peace on a piece of drawing paper and all of their images were composed into a Kids’ Guernica mural. They learned the necessity of working together for a peaceful world through the process of matching the color of each image with the whole color of the mural.