Students at a High School in Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture Aim to Fold 10,000 Paper Cranes for Peace; Cranes to Be Donated to Disaster-Hit Areas, Elsewhere

By Yuki Sasaki / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

10:39 JST, May 3, 2025

MITO — Students at Mito Girls’ High School have launched a project to fold 10,000 paper cranes that they plan to donate to illustrate their aspirations for peace and encourage people in disaster-hit areas.

The project originated from the students’ desire to promote peace. The students plan to give the cranes to the Chiran Peace Museum in Kagoshima Prefecture, people affected by the January 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake and others.

The school is also inviting people to chip in by donating paper cranes to help reach the goal of 10,000.

In late April, several students busily folded paper cranes in a classroom after school had finished for the day. “It’s important that we think about peace together while we fold cranes at the same time and in the same place,” said a third-year student.

The students began folding cranes together in 2022. Second-year students visit Chiran in Minamikyushu, Kagoshima Prefecture, on a school trip each March. In the closing days of World War II, Chiran was home to a base from which pilots of “special attack forces” — units in which aircraft were deliberately flown into enemy warships — took off on their final mission.

In February 2022, third-year students who were unable to go on the trip the previous year due to the COVID-19 pandemic visited Chiran one year later than scheduled. The students heard detailed stories about these pilots at the museum and wondered if there was something they could do themselves. They decided to fold 1,000 paper cranes together.

These cranes were entrusted to the second-year students who visited Chiran the following month, with the request that the cranes be donated to the museum. Since then, second-year students and teachers at the school have folded 1,000 cranes and delivered them to the museum during their annual trip.

This academic year, students decided to expand the crane-folding activity into a “future peace project” and ramp up production to 10,000 cranes. All students at the school are encouraged to participate, and residents also have been invited to cooperate with the project.

Students also plan to deliver some cranes to Ishikawa Prefecture, which was hit hard by the 2024 earthquake; and even the embassies of other countries in Japan, which were ravaged by war.

A third-year student, who lives in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, had to evacuate after the tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 struck the region. “I want these to reach people affected by a disaster,” she said.

Another third-year student said, “I hope people will learn about our hopes for peace through these cranes.”

How to contribute cranes

Those wishing to donate paper cranes to the school should use square sheets of paper that have sides 15 centimeters long or 7.5 centimeters long. The school asks to not complete the final steps of folding the crane’s neck and opening out the wings. Cranes made from Japanese washi paper, black paper or paper with glitter will not be accepted. The cranes can be dropped off at the school between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays or posted at the sender’s expense to the school’s future peace project. For more information, telephone the school at (029) 224-4124.