It was during the turbulent days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut, USA in December 2012 in which 20 children and six adults were fatally shot that former Disney animator, Sue DiCicco came up with the idea of the Peace Crane Project.
At the time, Ms DiCicco, a children’s book illustrator, was writing her own book and working on one of dozens of commissions. Like so many others, she wondered what people could do to help. She decided to post a question on Facebook: What would happen if we armed our children with the arts?
“What if we instilled in them a lifelong passion, and a way to express themselves through the arts?” she wrote. “Can we turn the tide on our violent culture? I believe we each need to step up, to do what we are able to change the conversation and move our children towards a more peaceful world.”
Among the huge number of responses to her post was one from someone involved with the International Day of Peace, sponsored by the United Nations in September each year.
And so the Peace Crane Project was launched.
Peace cranes have been used historically in Japan as a symbol of peace and goodwill. DiCicco thought they could also be used as a way to connect children around the world (she later found out that some groups were already folding cranes and sending them to the sites of disasters).
As conceived by DiCicco, the Peace Crane Project is an invitation to every child in the world to compose a poem, write a message, or draw or paint a picture of peace, and then fold it into an origami crane.
“How does one go about creating a project which is accessible to everyone in the world?” she asks. “Origami is close to perfect, requiring only a piece of paper and writing implement.”
The cranes are shared in the children’s own communities or traded with other children around the world using the project’s website. In its first year, children from 84 countries participated in the project.
“It’s a simple idea that can have a huge impact,” DiCicco says.
“The more our children connect and learn about one another, the more they can see our similarities and respect our differences, the closer we will all be to living in harmony in our own communities and around the world.”
Individual children or groups, sign up online, where video and written instructions explain how to fold the cranes. Participants then choose from a list of others with whom to exchange the cranes through the mail. Some schools set up Skype video calls so that the children can see and talk with one another.
This year the goal is to involve 1 million children by the middle of the year. Online videos show kids from all over the world folding cranes, holding them up, and cheering en masse – or offering individual peace messages.
A recent post catches a dusty schoolyard of blue-uniformed children in India cheering and holding up a string of cranes. Some of them are dancing and yelling “Peace!” Others are simply squealing. Other videos show kids placing the cranes on windowsills, in telephone booths, and on buses and sidewalks.
“It can really be a learning experience for a group of kids in rural India to see a totally different group of their peers in a completely different setting,” DiCicco says.
Although no one doubts the project has good intentions, it has been questioned by some.
These kinds of programs can make grown-ups feel good about themselves, but it may be questionable how much children actually learn from them, says Tim Horner, assistant professor at the Center for Peace and Justice Education at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania.
“If they are not able to start forming relationships, then this would be a useless exercise. I think sometimes we encourage our young people to be fascinated by different cultures without having them truly connect.”
DiCicco has heard such concerns before.
“What will grow from a simple exchange of cranes? Honestly, I wasn’t sure when I started this. I had no idea how many would join, and then how many would actually reach out and connect with one another,” she says. “But the exchanges have been plentiful and growing.”
The project has recently been given the support of Skype, which provides it with the ability to connect as many as 20 classrooms simultaneously.
Others applaud her initiative, and the project has already taken turns no one anticipated. Schoolchildren in Mexico folded cranes and, instead of sending them around the world, sold them in their community to raise funds to install plumbing at their school.
“They have a modern bathroom now for the first time,” DiCicco says.
Schools, classes, social groups (such as sporting organisations) can Join the Peace Crane Project here.
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