By Goya Dmytryshchak
Altona Primary School pupils have made 1400 paper peace cranes to mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Teacher Joanne Mathrick said the origami crane, an international symbol of peace, came from the children’s book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.
“Sadako was two when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,” she said. “Ten years later she contracted leukaemia as a result of the radiation.”
Sadako, who died in 1955 at the age of 12, hoped that by folding 1000 paper cranes she would be granted a wish – it would be that people around the world fold paper cranes to be sent to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima Peace Park with a wish for world peace.
