We collected 6,876.14 EUR on the donation account in Germany, received 4,000 EUR from Deutsche Post DHL, and as well have received ca. 160,000 JPY (~1,500 EUR) from the photo exhibition of Markus Grasmueck and his friends. Only a little bit will go into the coordination and logistics, but probably 95% will go into the fillings of school cones (teachers requested some small toys, school supplies and international candies). We will report later with the exact financial statements in order to show clear transparency.
Now we are in our final steps before delivering the school cones to 9 schools on the 5th of December. The schools are all located in Kamaishi, which is a town that was terrible hit by the tsunami.
First, we will plan a small activity in the morning of the 2nd of December at the German School in Tokyo, Yokohama. The students of the elementary school and their teachers will help us to pack the ca. 900 school cones. Our partner organization KnK will present their other activities for kids. And the pupils will create small/ big photo books out of all received drawings and post cards from other schools worldwide.
We hope that it will be a smooth and fast activity - but especially the wrapping/ packing and loading of the DHL truck will be a small challenge. At this point we like to thank Mr Karl Stigler and Mr Harald Gauss for all their help, suggestions and support. This entire project would not be possible without them.
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| German School in Tokyo/ Yokohama |
If anyone of you is in Tokyo on that day and like to help - please let us know! We need any help!
After that the DHL Supply Chain truck will departure to the North and deliver the school cones to 9 elementary schools in Kamaishi, which is North of Sendai. It is a coastal city with 40,000 citizens. One fifth of their houses and buildings got destroyed by 10 meter high tsunami waves.Many people do not see the long term perspective in their town and we found articles which explain their serious situation:
"Don't talk about the future!" says Emiko Gotoh, who runs a public bath severely damaged by the tsunami. "There's no place with work, so young people might well leave. It would be great if another big company came, but who'd come here after such a big tsunami?"
(pictures and quote taken from: http://tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/features/ageing-town-facing-reinvention-or-death-after-tsunami-1.43836)
Maybe our small project can put smiles on the faces of the kids and then they can spread this little joy in their town. It is not a big help in their situation, but we hope that it will be a small one and that the colorful school cones can make people happy. We received good feedback and grateful comments about our activity & the worldwide care already.
Hence, together with the educational board and the help of Mr Katsumi Yokote san we identified 2 schools in which we will deliver the cones personally and conduct a small magic show (with our partner "Let's Party Tokyo"). After that we will meet the principals of the other 7 schools and hand over school cones for the children in the 1st to 3rd grades. Altogether we will bring them approx. 900 school cones and the 9 created photo books (by students of German School in Tokyo) with more than 800 drawings and 500 postcards by kids from all over the world (Scotland, USA, Singapore, China, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Egypt, Kenya, Malta, etc.).
A special thank at this point goes to Gesa Neuert and Professor Hashimoto san, who helped us very much in getting in contact with the schools and the educational board of Kamaishi. Thanks a lot for all your help during the last two weeks.
If you will be in Tokyo on the 4th and 5th of December, you are very welcome in traveling with us to Kamaishi and hand over many school cones to the kids. We do not want to finance the transportation, as we like to give all the money into the school cones (or the left overs to other meaningful projects of our partners), but maybe you are interested and join us on our trip - please let us know and we can plan together in order to keep the costs for everyone very low!
Next time we will report with many pictures and a small video, which will be created by "Let's Party Tokyo".
Now we are looking forward to the special days and of course we have to do a lot of shopping before that...
