| It is the coldest season of the
year. Here, Kobe and Awaji, featuring mild climate, the weather has been
extremely cold these days.
10 years have passed since the Great Hanshin-Awaji
earthquake occured. The United Nations Disaster Prevention Conference is
held here in Kobe in efforts to mitigate damages caused by natural
disasters and establish the 21st century’s new guideline
for disaster prevention.. We take advantage of this opportunities to
hold public forum called “Hopes for revival prevail in earth～
Painting Exhibition and TV Conference～” |
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We recognize the Great Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake as our starting point. We achieve our goal by sharing the teaching
learned in many natural disasters in the world, utilizing
the Internet, working together with students the world over without regard of
countries, languages and religions, and encouraging students to think about
the importance of human life. In this regard, this is the new form of project
which aims to discuss the world’s future picture of disaster prevention.
This “Natural Disaster Youth Summit” was kicked off in
September, 2004. 300 students from 15 countries ,for example the U.S.A., Iran,
Indonesia, Senegal and Nepal and 750
students from Japan participate the project. All of them are positively
working on their each study in unique ways, preparing their presentation at
“the Disaster Prevention Youth Summit 2005 in Hyogo” held in March, 2005..
We hold the conference “Hopes
for revival prevail in earth～
Painting Exhibition and TV Conference～”as
interim report of our March’s project to inform you of some of students’
studies.
This time we exhibit the
paintings drawn by earthquake-striken children when we provided them with some
tools to heal their emotional trauma caused by the earthquake occurred in
Bam,Iran 2003 .We also display the messages written by children from all over
the world to encourage the sufferers of the Chuetsu Earthquake in Niigata. We
connect here, Awaji Yume Butai and the three overseas bases, Taiwan, Iran, and
Armenia through TV conference and exchange and discuss each district’s
current situation and method of restoration. We send the practice to the world
over. The progress of this conference will be released live to the world from
Awaji Yume Butai through the Internet. Some schools watch the live conference
in school gym or classroom, and discuss that.
We hope this
“Hopes for revival prevail in earth～ Painting Exhibition and TV
Conference～”will give many people the chances
to show the way to practice future disaster prevention study. In this project,
we also wish that children from all over the world and ones in Hyogo,Japan as
leading group, think together about what we should do and live as the member
of the world community and realize how important human life is or how
wonderful to help each other through
utilizing the ITC (information communication technology)
In conclusion, I want to encourage the people who suffered the
Chuetsu Earthquake in Niigata and the Indian Ocean Earthquake, especially
school students hoping for revival.
January 15, 2005
KOBE Japan
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