Gisborne Secondary College students have urged the Federal Government to sign a treaty against nuclear weapons.
A group of 13 students from the year 10 and 11 Japanese class presented 2,000 peace cranes to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Senator Jan McLucas, on Monday morning.
The Gisborne students went on a school trip to Japan last September/October as part of their Japanese studies.
They spent time in the city of Hiroshima learning from local students about how the city was destroyed by a nuclear bomb in World War II, killing 140,000 people.
"We saw how the city was damaged and thought, 'this is so wrong and this shouldn't happen anywhere in the world'," GSC Japanese teacher, Noriko Ikaga said.
Following the bombings, paper cranes became a symbol of world peace for Japanese people.
The Gisborne students would like to see the Australian Government join other nations in calling for negotiations on a treaty to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons.
"Although we don't have nuclear weapons here we still haven't signed a treaty against them," Ms Ikaga said.
The Gisborne students made 1,000 of the paper cranes, most while on the Japan school trip.
They agreed to make the cranes as a gift and peace message to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, at the suggestion of ICAN organisers (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). ICAN plans to have bundles of 1,000 cranes - symbolising support for nuclear disarmament - delivered to every president and prime minister worldwide.
The students had already made 1,000 hand-folded paper cranes at home to bring to Japan as a traditional peace symbol before ICAN made the proposal.
"It's tradition to make 1,000 cranes when we go to Japan to show you support world peace. Many people in Japan do this," Ms Ikaga said.
"When we got this invitation from ICAN we were just finished making 1,000 cranes to take to Hiroshima where the bomb was dropped.
"(The idea) came from ICAN. They though it would be good to have local students get involved, it would be nice to have support from kids here. When I asked them I wasn't sure if they would want to make 1,000 more cranes, but they said, 'yeah, yeah, we want to do it'.
"Once we got to Japan we bought paper, most of them we made in Japan. (The students) just found time on the train when we were going to a different city."
The remaining 1,000 peace cranes were hand-folded by Hiroshima students.
Riddells Creek GP and Medical Association for Prevention of War president, Dr Jenny Grounds, presented the 2,000 peace cranes to Senator McLucas at Gisborne Secondary College this week.
Senator McLucas travelled from Queensland to accept the cranes on the Prime Minister's behalf.
"She was a lovely, lovely lady. She told us the reason why she became a politician is she is against uranium mining," Ms Ikaga said.
"She said she will get a response from Julia Gillard for the students."
More than 140,000 paper cranes have already been delivered to leaders worldwide, and messages of support have been received from the presidents of Afghanistan, Cyprus, Greece, Kazakhstan, the Marshall Islands, Mozambique, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tunisia and Vanuatu, as well as the Secretary General of the United Nations.
www.icanw.org/resources/paper-crane-project
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