Workshop of Peace 1

Talk about Horrific Experience of Atomic Bomb by Michiko Yamaoka

Every year, Ms. Yamaoka talked about her experience of an atomic bomb and her wish to peace. We planned a workshop of peace so that participants could think about peace being inspired by her real experience. Unfortunately, this year, Ms. Yamaoka could not have a talk due to her illness. However, we used video of her talk recorded in Washington D.C. in 1995 to convey her very sincere wish to participants.

Summer in 1945

Ms. Yamaoka had a atomic-bombing when she was 15 years old. Thus, we began with let each participant draw a picture of the summer when he/she was at age of 15. By drawing pictures and also recalling our age of 15, we could realize the situation Ms. Yamaoka had. This was quite a rare opportunity that we could listen to the experience of atomic bomb survivors at first hand.

Sharing Comments

After the talk (in video), we shared our comments and feelings in different groups. “We can’t decide who is responsible for a war, but we can at least say a war itself shouldn’t happen.” and “I want to widely inform everybody of what I learned today” are the participants’ comments. Some people are so impressed by the talk that they can’t help crying.

World Coin Game

The world is unfair.
The world has a number of problems; poverty, food shortage, etc. Everything is not evenly distributed in this world. To realize this reality we face today, we played a game to learn the unfairness of the world. We set up four different countries with different economic situations, populations, and locations. In each country, people played a role in president, diplomat, and citizen, and everybody is committed to strengthen his country. In a game, we employed currency named “World Coin” with which we can use for establishing companies, making and buying weapons, and developing oilfields.

Players were expected to make a decision about the way they use money. Since each country is in a different situation, players with different social status had a intensive discussion on their country’s policy. Through this discussion, players have also closely experienced policy making process, and cash flows in economy.

No Borders

After we had a game, we removed all the borders in a game. We carefully listened to the sound that marbles falling on the game board made. This sound represents military expenditure spent all over the world today.

Again, we listened to sound marbles make. But this time, the number of marbles we threw is proportional to the amount of money we needed to relieve people in poverty. The sound only lasts one tenth of what we have heard last time which was a surprising fact.