As a person living in Hiroshima, I would like to convey my hope for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

I taught Japanese to foreign people for ten years. Also, as a volunteer guide from SGG, a goodwill guides’ group, I showed foreign tourists around Miyajima and other tourist spots.
* Systematized Goodwill Guides (SGG) is “a small kindness campaign,” in which members assist overseas visitors so that they can enjoy traveling around Japan without the inconvenience of language barriers. It is registered with the JNTO, the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Since there were many foreign visitors who were interested in the A-bombing on Hiroshima, I sent some materials about the A-bombing to them after the tour, and I also started learning about it.
Rather than being involved in a “peace activity,” I wanted to tell about the A-bombing and convey my hope for the abolition of nuclear weapons as a person living in Hiroshima.

Yes. My presentation in Mongolia was arranged by a Japanese language teacher there. Learning about peace is common in Mongolia, and many people seriously listened to my presentation.
There is a large organization called the “Never Again Campaign.”
It was established about 30 years ago, and I joined its activities for two months in 2011, as its tenth graduating member.
We are not allowed to talk only about the A-bombing in the U.S. and can only get approval to talk about it if we also introduce Japanese culture.
Since I had been learning tea ceremony and calligraphy, my husband recommended that I join that activity. I gave presentations to various people, from kindergarteners to adults, visiting churches and schools in the U.S.

I remember very well the presentation I gave at a school in Austin, Texas, which is said to be conservative. Lectures about the A-bomb were rarely held in Texas in those days. In Austin, there were some people who supported the NAC. I stayed at their houses to give presentations. We chose the places for the presentation by exchanging emails in advance and through the information my host friends had given.
Although Texas was said to be conservative, Austin, the state capital, was a town of many colleges and more open-minded. In the social studies curriculum in the U.S., students usually study about the world wars in February to March. When I visited the school, they had just finished the chapter which said the A-bombing had brought the war to an earlier end.
In that school, some students, sitting with their feet up on their desks, didn’t listen to me at first. However, when I said, “I came here to tell what happened under the mushroom cloud,” their attitudes changed and they started to listen.

I tried various things, like changing the content of my presentation from school to school.
In one school, I was going to use picture cards, but they didn’t allow me to use one card in which a mother holding her child was frantically trying to escape the fire. I protested, saying, “Students cannot learn what really happened without this card!”
I also showed students pictures of the scenes after the A-bombing. I had them imagine what they would think if something like this happened to their families.

Yes. I have kept them even today.
One of them from an elementary student reads, “If I became president after I study hard, I would never drop an A-bomb.” Another was, “I am sorry” written in Japanese from a student who had been studying Japanese. When I read them, I was close to tears.

In order for the younger generation to convey the A-bombing on Hiroshima, you should free yourself from the ambiguous word, “peace” and try to find a way to use something visible and concrete, not ideological. Look at the monuments, A-bombed buildings and trees in Hiroshima, feel them and think. That is one of the ways you can start. I hope you can find your own answers and convey them to others.