Sadako was 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on her city seventy years ago. Nine years later she developed the atomic bomb disease, leukemia. Hearing the ancient Japanese story that says when you fold 1000 paper cranes your wish will be granted, Sadako folded 644 cranes with her wish for healing before she died at twelve years old.

Inspired by her courage and strength, her friends and classmates dreamed of creating a monument to memorialize their friend and all children killed by the bomb. Young people all over the land of the rising sun realized their dream a couple of years later when in 1958 a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish. It is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:

“This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world”.

Today, people all over the world continue to fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima.

May there be peace on earth and may it begin with me…