Ishinomaki Scenery Vol. 6 – Kawabiraki Festival
Photo gallery from the biggest local festival, the “89th Ishinomaki Kawabiraki (“River Opening”) Festival,” held in Ishinomaki on July 31 and August 1, 2012.
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Aug 2012
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05
Aug 2012
“We made it to the top of Mt Fuji!” – Staff member’s diary
As part of a recreation project for children in Fukushima, Peace Boat planned a mountain climbing trip to Mt Fuji from July 21-23, 2012. This post is based on the diary of Takeda Nobuhiro, a Peace Boat Disaster Volunteer Center Staff member himself from Koriyama, Fukushima.
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Jul 2012
Oraho’s Machizukuri Oen (Support to revitalize our town)
The ”Oraho’s Machizukuri Oen” programme held as part of the Ishinomaki volunteering experience offers a rich and intense two-day program to see sides of Ishinomaki which cannot be experienced in other ways.
This programme’s highest priority is the chance to meet with local people. Participants can create their visions of the future together with the local people while listening to their passions and plans to rebuild their community and businesses.
“Please come and visit Ishinomaki to find new attractions of Ishinomaki as a revitalizing town, not only as the disaster-affected Ishinomaki. You will also be able to feel where Japan is going through these two-day programs. We are really looking forward to meeting you all in Ishinomaki.”
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Jul 2012
Grand Opening of the Ishinomaki Peace Boat Center!
The “Peace Boat Center Ishinomaki” was officially opened on June 2, after renovation taking place since the Golden Week break in May. The grand opening for this community exchange space took place with an event in which local community members and many other people who have been involved and supported Peace Boat’s activities in Ishinomaki over the past 1 year and three months.
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Jun 2012
HOPE for JAPAN 2011 Project
A group of young participants onboard Peace Boat’s 73rd Global Voyage in 2011 took the initiative to start a new project, considering what each individual can do for Tohoku. They decided to just take pen and paper, and collect messages of love for Tohoku from across the world, in a project they called “Hope for Japan 2011.”
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Jun 2012
Fukushima & Venezuela Music Youth Ambassadors – Widened Horizons: Opening the World’s Door for Fukushima’s Youth
FUKUSHIMA & VENEZUELA MUSIC YOUTH AMBASSADORS:
Delegates from the Fukushima Television Junior Orchestra will join Peace Boat’s 76th Global Voyage together with delegates from the world renowned The Simón Bolívar Music Foundation (also known as “El Sistema,” providing free music education to 350,000 children in an effort to discourage them from crime and develop a culturally rich society), following music exchanges with the Gustavo Dudamel Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA) program, the El Sistema Los Angeles group which provides programs for under-privileged young people.
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Jun 2012
Certificate of appreciation and commemorative token from the Ishinomaki Technical High School!
Peace Boat was honoured to receive a certificate of appreciation, a towel commemorating the team’s entry into the Koshien national tournament, and an original photo stand from the Koshien Committee of the Ishinomaki Technical High School, whose baseball team made their first entry into Koshien this spring.
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Jun 2012
Making Accesories with Ogatsu Stone is “something to live for” – Funakoshi Ladies, Ogatsu
The fishing village of Funakoshi sits on the northern side of the Ogatsu Peninsula, about a one-hour drive from central Ishinomaki. Today, there is no sight of children at the Funakoshi Primary School, where the 17m-high tsunami flooded up to the 3rd floor. In the school building, however, you can hear the laughter of the ‘Funakoshi Ladies’ in their workshop, furnished with tatami-mats in the hallway.
The ‘Funakoshi Ladies’ now famously make and sell necklaces and cellphone straps made from Ogatsu Stone, as well as “Kai-no-Netsuke (shell charms)”, a popular charm for happiness in marriage.
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Apr 2012
Messages from around the world for the Ishinomaki Technical High School Baseball Team
Messages of support for the Ishinomaki Technical High School competing in the national high school baseball championships!
Thank you so much for such warm support from around the world. Please see below for messages from the Ambassadors of Panama and Cuba to Japan, as well as former MLB player Bobby Valentine.
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Mar 2012
Computers arrive in the schoolhouse!
After losing its own premises in the tsunami, Minato Daini Junior School is now located in temporary prefabricated buildings on the grounds of another local junior school. However, none of the facilities enjoyed by the students as before are yet available. Upon request from the school, Peace Boat has worked with the PAL System Cooperative Association to provide the school with 13 child-oriented computers for lesson purposes, successfully installed on March 1.