The City of Hiroshima held the International Youth Conference for Peace in the Future (IYCPF) 2015 in August 2015. Coming from a variety of cities, youth participants learned many things by living together and exchange opinions regarding how they will contribute to building everlasting world peace.
2015 was a milestone year for the City of Hiroshima which marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing. During this year, we called on young people from the Lead Cities of Mayors for Peace to attend the conference and had them touch upon the realities of the atomic bombing and share in the experiences and wishes for peace of the atomic bomb survivors.
This is a summary of IYCPF Hiroshima 2015 and participants’ impressions.
Outline of the International Youth Conference for Peace in the Future Hiroshima 2015Date: August 4 (Tue.) to 14 (Fri.), 2015
Place: Hiroshima City
Participants: 25 from Hiroshima City [21 youth and 4 leaders]
56 [50 youth and 6 leaders] from overseas including sister and friendship cities of Hiroshima and other cities such as the Mayors for Peace lead cities, namely:
Volgograd, Hanover, Chongqing, Daegu, Montreal, Honolulu, Ningbo, Poznan, Blantyre, Coventry, Verona, Izmir, Tehran, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Saint Petersburg, Bangkok, Malakoff, Santos, Manchester, Kochi, Granollers, Wellington
(Underlined are Mayors for Peace Lead Cties as of August 2015)
Schedule:
| Date | Schedule | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | Afternoon | Night | Hotel | |||
| 1 | 8/4 | Tue. | Arrival | International Youth House | ||
| 2 | 8/5 | Wed. | Orientation Watch the DVD ‘HIROSHIMA: Mother’s Prayer’ |
Practice for each city’s presentation and reading poems | Welcome Dinner | |
| 3 | 8/6 | Thurs. | Participation in Peace Memorial Ceremony Carp streamer signature movement |
YCPF Opening Events (poem reading, presentation) |
Lantern floating | |
| 4 | 8/7 | Fri. | Tour of Peace Memorial Museum Talk by a survivor of the atomic bombing |
School visit | ||
| 5 | 8/8 | Sat. | Tour of Uedaryu Wafudo (Japanese Tea Ceremony) |
Visit to Itsukushima Shrine | Miyajima Morinoyado | |
| 6 | 8/9 | Sun. | Decorating ‘shamoji’ rice scoops | Homestay | Homestay | |
| 7 | 8/10 | Mon. | Decorating ‘shamoji’ rice scoops | Homestay | International Youth House | |
| 8 | 8/11 | Tue. | Group Discussion | Group Discussion | ||
| 9 | 8/12 | Wed. | Group Discussion | Group Discussion | Bon dancing | |
| 10 | 8/13 | Thurs. | Full discussion of Hiroshima Appeal | IYCPF Closing Ceremony | Farewell Party | Hotel |
| 11 | 8/14 | Fri. | Departure | |||
Participants’ impressions:
>Impressions of the youth representatives of Mayors for Peace Lead Cities