The Peace Crane Project
Uniting the Children of the World Through the Arts
Never in the human history has it been so easy for each of us to have a voice, connect with one another, and influence the discussions about important issues facing us today. This is the moment to meet our collective potential.
With a focus on children, we have tremendous opportunity to change the landscape in the coming years. By connecting them now, in a healthy and meaningful exchange of cultural and social greetings and interactions, we pave the way for a new world in the decades to come. By encouraging a deeper appreciation and understanding of others through a direct connection, we will build a global society that embraces our differences, and celebrates our diversity.
The Peace Crane Project, designed to connect children in every corner of the world, is an exploration of this ability of our new social media opportunities to connect and enrich the lives of our children in a unified goal of peace and understanding. We invite classrooms, community groups, and individual families to join us in writing a poem or drawing a picture about peace, folding it into an origami crane, then through us, trading it with another child somewhere in the world. In addition to sharing their origami art, exchanges often grow to include emails, videos, live video chats, and the exchange of small trinkets and gifts, unique to the sender’s country of origin.
Through this simple exercise of connecting, children learn the cultures and customs of their exchange partners. They gain a clear understanding of their location on the globe, and something about the geographical uniqueness of their newfound friends. They also gain the skills to express themselves creatively, foregoing a need to act out in less desirable ways, in an effort to be heard.
With the prevalence of social media comes the opportunity for all of us to create pathways of understanding for our children. Each of us brings our own unique skills and life experience to the challenges ahead. By focusing on our own uniqueness and sharing it with a global audience, we have the potential to reach billions of hearts, and connect the world in a communal vision of peace.
The overwhelming majority of people on earth share the same vision; a desire to live peacefully with others, a need to feel connected with members of our families, communities, and the world. Together, we in the majority can now quickly connect to light the way forward, if we realize our potential together and act upon it.
In an era of instant news, and sensationalist rhetoric filling the airwaves 24/7, it is up to each of us to create a path outside the political and powerful structures that have defined us, and build direct, positive, productive, and meaningful pathways forward. Our very existence may depend on each of us ordinary and caring citizens, guiding the ship in new directions.
We all need only do what we are able. We don’t need to solve every problem, or even a single problem. We only need to connect our children in a vision of peace and harmony, and introduce them to one another in a loving and inclusive way. This can be done one child at a time, or millions at once. It only matters that we begin, and each of us participate to the best of our ability. A connected and culturally educated society will lead to a more peaceful planet. A more peaceful and cohesive mankind can then address other pressing global issues together, in a voice united.
The Peace Crane Project is designed in a way that allows participants to expand upon it, adjust it to fit the needs in their schools, communities and families. It is only one example of the infinite ways we can connect our youth. Swimming together in this inclusive, egalitarian digital world, the ways to connect are as varied as the swells and currents of the ocean. Using the momentum of this powerful tide, we can propel the conversation in new and increasingly powerful directions.
For more information about the Peace Crane Project, and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit our website .