As you are all aware Japan recently suffered one of the most violent and destructive earthquakes in history. The impact of the earthquake and the tsunami it caused has devastated many towns and cities across Japan.

 

My name is Toshie Mizunuma, I am a PhD student at Edinburgh University. My hometown is Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture in Japan. The city is home to 175000 people and has been destroyed by the earthquake. Thankfully my mother and the rest of my family survived the disaster, but many are not so lucky. The officials confirmed that 10,000 of their citizens were missing.  Thousands of people are living in temporary shelters and no longer have homes to return to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366934/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-10k-missing-Ishinomaki-death-toll-set-hit-25k.html

I would like to collect 1000 paper cranes for the homeless people in Ishinomaki. Collecting and giving 1000 handmade paper cranes is a Japanese tradition which is said to bring luck and recovery from injury and illness to the recipients of the cranes. For more information on this see:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_origami_cranes

 

I will send the cranes to my brother, who is currently working at some of the temporary shelters. He will distribute these cranes to people living in the shelters, and hopefully spread hope to those staying there.

Traditionally origami cranes are made on standard size origami paper, but any square coloured or patterned of paper ~20 x 20 cm will be perfect except black and white papers. I would be very grateful if you could make a  crane by folding it up using the instructions in the link below and then write a message on the underside of the wings for the people of Ishinomaki. I am aiming to string together 1000 of these cranes to send over to my brother so please encourage as many people as you can to make one of these. Also I ask that for every crane you make you give a donation to the British Red Cross via this website. The British Red Cross have then agreed that they are going to forward all the money we send them into their Japanese tsunami relief appeal ( http://www.redcross.org.uk/japantsunami ).

How to make a paper crane:

 

http://monkey.org/~aidan/origami/crane

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yaN7RGZYmHc/TXy22ra44uI/AAAAAAAAJvk/4H9DMJ0D7fY/s1600/origami-cranes.gif

 

Please send any cranes you make to me:
Toshie Mizunuma

School of GeoSciences

University of Edinburgh

Crew Building

Kings Buildings

West Mains Road

Edinburgh EH9 3JN

UK

 

 

Alternatively just make a donation and leave a message on the wall of this page which you would like to be put on your crane and we will make it for you.

 

 

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give,

Toshie

 

 

 

 

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