Category: Planting Ceremony

Totsukawa village is rich in nature and is located along the Totsukawa river that flows through the Yoshino-gun, Nara Prefecture. The people of Nishikawa Junior High School including teachers are close to each other, just like a “family” and they enjoy their life in a wonderful environment rich in nature. The ten third-year students who expected to graduate that year visited the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum on the school trip so they already felt the importance of peace. Mr. Yuji Nakajima, a teacher at the school who saw the Kaki Tree Project exhibition at the Museum of Art, Kochi, in 2001 applied for the project to celebrate graduation of the… Read more »

Volunteers from the executive committee of “The Final War at Sekigahara, Ogaki Exhibition” held in Ogaki City in 2000 set up the “O-kaki Project Executive Committee” and are promoting the Kaki Tree Project to elementary schools and junior high schools in Ogaki City. After planting the trees in the park of Ogaki Castle, Kono Elementary School and Higashi Junior High School in 2000, they planted 4 more trees in 2001, 8 more in 2002 and 6 more in 2003 in a place such as Nishi Junior High School, Seibu Junior High School, Akasaka Junior High School, Nissin Elementary School, Shizusato Elementary School, Koubun Elementary School. On the 10th of October… Read more »

Nature in Art is an art center which specializes in art with a theme of nature. Mr. Bruce Allan, an artist, has heard the story about the seedlings from the bomb survived persimmon tree from Ms. Chantal Rusell Le Roux who joined the project in Bordeaux and realized the project after two years of effort together with the children of Churcham Primary School. The executive committee visited Churcham Primary School prior to the tree planting ceremony and received a warm welcome. Children were full of curiosity about the visitors from a far country. Then they moved to the planting site by bus. The bus was filled with cheery voices of… Read more »

Glasgow Botanic Gardens is located in the city’s West End. This is a place where people can relax. Mr. Gerry Loose, who led the project, is a poet and organizes various events as the “Poet in Residence” in the gardens. He visited the the Kaki Tree Project secretariat when he visited Japan in the spring of 2001. It was a beautiful sunny day without the cloud in the sky on the day of the tree planting ceremony. The participants ranged from children to the elderly. They started to gather around when the time came and those with dogs and in a wheelchair also casually joined. A variety of performances that… Read more »

Draper Middle School is located in Scenectoday, a town 20 minutes’ drive north from the state capital, Albany, and is a big school with an adjacent public high school. Ms. Maryam Mair, a teacher of Draper Middle School, proposed implementation of the Kaki Tree Project to the school and her colleagues, 3 teachers applied for the project on behalf of the school. On the day before the ceremony, 30 students of “Peers of Peace” club, whose advisor was Ms. Maryam Mair, participated the Origami workshop. They also made a banner. The ceremony held at the auditorium of the adjacent high school was spectacular. It started with music performance followed by… Read more »

W. Haywood Burns Environmental Education Center is a NPO organization located in Albany, the capital of the state of New York. The center is actively conducting various projects to educate and improve the lives of impoverished people. It is also promoting partnership with companies and the government to enhance safety of children by upgrading and improving the facilities and environment of the Tivoli Lake Nature Preserve after they had learned that Tivoli Lake was polluted. They are going to make the peace garden in the preserve after 2 years and plant a persimmon tree there. By planting the persimmon tree, they hope to provide spiritual support to the impoverished people… Read more »

Northwest High School is located in Germantown, which is 45 minutes by car from Washington D.C. The persimmon tree was planted in the front yard of the media center of the school. The school is still quite new, this is their 3rd year. Peace club, one of the school’s extracurricular activities, is very unique compared to other club activities in the world. This time the project was realized because the club advisor was very keen on it but the planning of the project was run voluntarily, lead by the peace club students and PTA. At the ceremony, the students orchestra played Symphony No.1(In Memoriam, Dresden, 1945) by an American composer,… Read more »

Takamori-cho is famous for its fruit. “Persimmon Tree” is the town tree. It is the birthplace of “Ichitagaki”, the well-known breed for hoshigaki (dried persimmons) and every house has persimmon trees and hangs dried persimmons. Persimmons with which the children of the town are familiar are now connected to peace. The people of the town have increased awareness of peace and they dispatch peace buses to Hiroshima every year. Participants are elementary school children, junior high school and high school students as well as the general public. In Maruyama Park, where the departing ceremony of peace buses is held, a sapling from a seed of the bombed flame tree (Firmiana… Read more »

At the Museum of Art, Kochi, the exhibition “Revive Time” Kaki Tree Project in Kochi was held from the 20th of July through the 16th of September, 2001, which was followed by several related events such as the exhibition “From Dappan (Escape from the Domain) Road to Kaki Tree” and “Hand-made Musical Instruments Workshop” until the tree planting ceremony. The tree planting ceremony was held at the entrance hall due to drizzling rain. Approximately 30 people including children and their parents attended. After the speech given by Mr. Ebinuma, “Kaki Tree Musical Band”, which consisted of workshop participants, played music. The musical instruments such as flute, drums, Kakimba and Hyoukin… Read more »

Brick Township Memorial High School is a public high school with students from 14 to 18 years of age and a big school with the number of students ranging from 1,800 to 2,000. Mr. David Seegert, a teacher who is the local office representative, is young and an energetic person, who is a counselor for the high school students on mental and physical aspects. He applied for the project after reading an article on the Kaki Tree Project in an education magazine by Ms. Dee Mayes, a teacher who participated in the project in Dallas. The trees will be planted in the public park near the high school (in March)…. Read more »

Volunteers from the executive committee of “The Final War at Sekigahara, Ogaki Exhibition” held in Ogaki City in 2000 set up the “O-kaki Project Executive Committee” and are promoting the Kaki Tree Project to elementary schools and junior high schools in Ogaki City. After planting the trees in the park of Ogaki Castle, Ono Elementary School and Higashi Junior High School in 2000, they planted 4 more trees in 2001 and 8 more trees in 2002 in a place such as Kita Junior High School, Kita Elementary School, Nakagawa Elementary School, Kawanami Elementary School, Aohaka Elementary School, Seiwa Junior High School, Pacific Industrial Co., Ltd., Seino Transportation Co., Ltd. …. Read more »

Cesky Krumlov is an ancient town with beautiful nature and historic buildings from the Middle Ages, and is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The town was also once part of the so-called Sudetenland, annexed by Nazi Germany. After encountering the second generation seedling of the bombed persimmon tree at Venice Biennial in 1999, Mr. Ivo Moravec, a biologist, planned the tree planting with his friends of Independent Company of Art in order to remember the war times in Cesky Krumlov. Prior to tree planting, the tree presentation ceremony was held on the 4th of March. At the ceremony, the seedling was planted in a special pot by children… Read more »

5 students of IT.IS.”G. Galilei” expressed their interest in joining the project after seeing the Kaki Tree Project exhibit at Venice Biennial held in 1999. They participated in the project as part of their graduation project. They also plan to make CD-ROM with the themes of peace, culture, history and atomic bomb. The tree planting ceremony was held at Scuola Materna “M. Montessori”. The entire event was held indoors due to rain.With students from IT.IS.”G. Galilei” taking the lead, children from Scuola Materna “M. Montessori” as well as from neighboring elementary schools and junior high schools (lower secondary schools) were invited. The mayor of Crema, Chairperson of Crema Cultural Association… Read more »

The tree planting this time was realized because a city gardener expressed an interest in the project after seeing the Kaki Tree Project exhibit at “The Edge of Awareness” exhibition held in 1998 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Then the gardener met a teacher of the Family School and they officially applied for the project. The Family School is located near the UN Headquarters, which is in the central part of the city, and it does not have a garden. So we negotiated with Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is located a little distance away, and the tree planting ceremony was carried out on the 27th of… Read more »

Volunteers from the executive committee of “The Final War at Sekigahara, Ogaki Exhibition” held in Ogaki City in 2000 set up the “O-kaki Project Executive Committee” and are promoting the Kaki Tree Project to elementary schools and junior high schools in Ogaki City. The trees were planted in the park of Ogaki Castle, Kono Elementary School and Higashi Junior High School in 2000 and 4 more trees were planted in 2001 in a place such as Akasaka Elementary School, Yasui Elementary School, Uruu Elementary School, Higashi Elementary School. On the 10th of October 2009, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first tree planting, the festival “O-kaki Chorus with a… Read more »

A farmer in Zonnemaire, Mr. Jaap Verseput, applied for the tree planting. Mr. Jaap grows vegetables such as potatoes but he also places art works in his vast farm and every year organizes and enjoys “Farm Festival” with the local people, where artists from all over the world are invited to do performance of music, theater, poem, etc. As Mr. Jaap was impressed by the purpose of the Kaki Tree Project, he established the local office with the local people including local artists. At first, they wanted to plant the tree in 2000, the year which marked the 400th anniversary of Japan-Holland friendship, however, since the summer season when the… Read more »