Marton friends take on paper peace cranes challenge

Marton women folding more than 1000 Peace Cranes at the Marton Library (from Left) Ali Hale Tilley, Raima Neale and Sharon Gordon.

Nearly 900 paper peace cranes have been folded by a group of volunteers at the Marton Library over the past week - with more to come.

Friends Raima Neale and Sharon Gordon said they were chatting over a coffee one day when the idea was mooted to set up a local group and send the special peace offerings to Hiroshima in Japan from the people of Marton.

They have been thrilled at the response to the project.

"Not only have people come in to sit at our large table to learn how to fold the origami cranes, they have also donated piles of brightly patterned and coloured light cardboard squares," Ms Gordon said.

Ms Neale said she has been involved with the peace movement for many years when she was living in Wellington.

The 1000 origami cranes concept was popularised through the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who was just two years old when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States in August 1945 during World War II.

Sadako soon developed leukaemia and at 12, after spending a significant amount of time in hospital, began making origami cranes with the goal of making 1000, inspired by a Japanese legend.

In the story - as told in the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes - she folded only 644 before she became too weak to fold anymore, and died on October 25, 1955.

In her honour, her classmates decided to complete the rest for her.

There is a statue of Sadako holding a crane in the Peace Park in Hiroshima, and every year on August 26 people leave cranes at the statue in memory of the dead and injured.

Now long ropes of the colourful cranes hang in the main windows of the Marton library.

Ms Neale said that people from all over the world send more than 10 million peace cranes to the peace monument in Hiroshima in remembrance of all the children who suffered and died when the first atomic bomb was dropped.

Folding 1000 cranes means all wishes come true, Ms Gordon said.

"We certainly need it in today's world."