An organization in Japan launched a project to call on children from different parts of the world to send letters of hope to the victims of the tsunami and earthquake that devastated the country in 2011, BBC reported.
Dubbed as the Gengki Mail project, lead organizer Yuitaka Uritani believes receiving heartening or "genki" letters from strangers will greatly help the victims' healing process.
Uritani started the project just days after the disaster in 2011. At that time, he delivered 30 letters from Japanese elementary students attending schools in Kobe to the victims of the disaster, according to Kyodo News. Then, after a few months, he coordinated with five college students from the United States. to visit Japan and distribute 7,000 letters written by Americans.
In 2012, Mongolia and France joined the U.S. and took part in the Genki Mail project. For this year, Uritani aims to expand the scope of the project by urging the governments of Russia, Finland, China, Canada, Chile, Norway, Thailand and Peru to tell their young citizens to participate in the campaign.
The letters, which Uritani assumes will be written in various languages, will be translated into Japanese by student volunteers from Osaka University and Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. These will then be delivered to shelters and schools in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
According to Uritani, the purpose of the project is to make the victims feel that they are not alone.
"My aim is to have all kinds of people, such as the physically disabled, the elderly, children and people from wherever take part [in this campaign], as it is just about writing your feelings," he told Kyodo News.
He was inspired to launch the project after he became a victim of the Great Hanshin Earthquake. After losing everything because of the disaster, the idea of committing suicide crossed his mind, according to the online Japanese magazine Wochi Kochi.
But then, he started receiving encouraging fax messages from his friends residing in different countries such as China and Mongolia. These gave him the strength to overcome the situation and work on rebuilding his life.
