Donguri Bokin”,　Kobe City, Japan

”Donguri Bokin”, Kobe City, Japan

2005/1/12

I’m happy that I could announce you to start “Donguri Bokin” (Acorn Fund-Raising).

It made the purpose which "sends the nursery tree to the place where it has the disaster of the world", "acorn fund-raising"

When the big Typhoon occurred in Slovakia last year, we heard they lost a lot of the acorn trees as much as the buildings and their lives.

Ms. Yoshie Naya wanted to send the nursery trees of acorn to them. She put forward to start raising fund to buy them. She asked the participated teachers of this project to have their students made greeting cards and sold them to collect the money. However, she realized that we can’t send plants to other countries because of the problem of quarantine and the teachers didn’t want to sell their students works which are precious thing for them. She almost gave up for it.

I remembered a story of “Tulip”. A man visited an old sufferer to see her when the big earthquake occurred in Kobe . Several weeks had passed since then. He brought a bottle of water and a tulip to her. When she saw a bottle of water, she didn’t change her expression.

But she broke into a smile when she received a gift of tulip from him and showed him her friendly smile.

The Tsunami caused a great deal of damage to many countries in Asia . Many people lost their lives, families, possessions and towns. I flinched against the menace of the natural disaster and couldn’t find a word to comfort them in their grief.

However, we can show them our love and friendship.

Over 400 students and teachers will get together at NDYS 2005 in Kobe this spring.

We’re going to ask them to donate to “Donguri Bokin”.

My students and their mothers started to make small hand-made crafts to give the donators to show their gratitude and friendship. I believe it would be effective for the children to motivate to learn the importance of helping each other.

If you agree with the spirit of this movement, will you start making some small crafts and send or bring them when your representatives visit to Kobe at the end of March.

If you have some questions or want to know more information, please send them to”Donguri Bokin or a secretariat of NDYS.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Yoshiko Fukui　（Kumon Institute of Education）

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