Send a message or a prayer of peace.                     View messages from around the world.

“I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”

With those words, 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki wrote her own legacy and opened new avenues in the quest for peace.

Many people know the story of the brave, athletic  Japanese girl. She was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years after being exposed to radiation at the age of two years from the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

She started folding origami paper cranes after a friend reminded her of a legend:  if one folds a thousand cranes, one will live to be very old. As she folded the cranes, she would say the words written above.

Sadako had intimate knowledge of the costs of war and nuclear attack. Her health was waning, yet she wanted to spread peace.

Sadako set out to fold 1,000 cranes. There are differing accounts of how successful she was. One book says that she folded 644 before dying. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum says she folded 1,000 and began work on another set of 1,000. However many cranes Sadako folded, students in Japan were moved by her story and began to fold cranes, too. Sadako wrote, “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.” The paper crane has become a global symbol of peace, and a statue of Sadako now stands in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. She continues to inspire people and organizations around the world. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is one of those organizations.  

In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria dedicated the Sadako Peace Garden in Santa Barbara, California.

This year, on August 6, we will hold our 14th annual Sadako Peace Day  at the
     Sadako Peace Garden at  La Casa de Maria
     800 El Bosque Road
     Montecito, California
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Admission is free.

We want you to be part of this ceremony for peace -- no matter where you live. Please e-mail us your messages and prayers for peace. We will list as many as we can on our website and choose a selection to read at our Peace Day ceremony in Santa Barbara. Afterwards, we will compile all the messages of peace and send them to the White House.

In this way,  you can follow Sadako’s inspiration, and write out your hopes for peace so they may fly all over the world (via the Internet).

People often ask us how they can make a difference for peace.  Sadako showed us one way. She never relinquished her hope for a better world. All we need to do is follow her lead.

So we invite you to make your views heard. Give your peace message “wings” by putting it into words and sending it to us.

One voice can become a powerful force for change when it joins millions of others all seeking the same thing.

Send a message or a prayer of peace                                           View messages from around the world

Thank you,

David Krieger
President
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation