By Naoki Ogiwara | Vice Director
In Japan, a new academic year starts in April with full blooming cherry trees. To help kids affected by earthquake and tsunami be able to enjoy a hopeful beginning of their new academic year, Project YUI sent over one hundred volunteers to Ishinomaki area.
Many school buildings there were severely damaged that forced children of damaged schools go to another school. Now, such schools are under the process of merger which requires significant work for not only accepting all the students from multiple schools to one school building but letting them have hopeful, enjoyable and learningful time at their new school while avoiding sense of loss for their original one.
Volunteers sent by Project YUI helped this by painting all the doors, walls, entrances of the new school with a lot of pastel colored paint. How did children, parents and teachers find the change? The unusual colored school building surprised them, in a favorable way:
“Wow, it became completely a new school!”
“I can be much more positive with the new colorful building!”
All the work was done by volunteer-basis: paint was contributed by paint companies, volunteers such as local high school students, parents, business people in Tokyo worked together for a week. With the collective support, the Ishinomaki students had their fun first day at the pastel colored building.
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