Short of funds and wielding no influence, a 12-year-old girl still managed to get prefectural governors across Japan to join hands in support of victims of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Short of funds and wielding no influence, a 12-year-old girl still managed to get prefectural governors across Japan to join hands in support of victims of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Rino Isogai, a junior high school student in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, sent requests to all 47 prefectural governors to send her postcards for a collective message to the disaster victims, letting them know they were not alone. She asked the local leaders to draw people or creatures extending their arms to the sides of the postcards so that, when lined up, the postcards would show a circle of joined hands.
So far, Rino has received 43 postcards from the governors.
"Half of me thought that no one would take the wishes of a junior high school student seriously," she said. "I am very happy that I have been able to collect so many warm feelings for the disaster areas."
Rino's grandmother lives in Sendai, and the girl's mother spent her student days in Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture.
After the March 11 disasters, Rino was helping her mother send relief supplies to the stricken areas when she thought about what else she could do.
After watching TV reports and reading newspaper articles, Rino said she thought, "They are probably suffering and feeling lonely as they are all by themselves."
She thought about what she would want if placed in a similar situation.
She said, "I wanted to pass on the fact that we are all connected and that everyone in Japan was cheering them on."
Rino herself came up with the idea of using the illustrations of outstretched hands in the postcards. In her letters to the governors, she also asked them to include a message to the disaster victims.
It took her one week to think about what to include in her letter and four hours to properly write all the postcards to the governors.
In her letter, Rino wrote: "I am still a junior high school student so I cannot go to the Tohoku region to volunteer nor can I donate a lot of money. But I am writing this letter with the belief that there is something that even I can do."
She saved up her monthly allowance of 500 yen ($6.50) and used her leftover New Year's gift money to buy stamps and return postcards. She mailed the letters in late June.
Three days after she sent the letters, Rino received her first reply. It was from Saitama Governor Kiyoshi Ueda.
Jumping with joy, she said: "Mom, it came! It came!"
Forty-two governors followed suit. But she was forced to have her mother draw an illustration of herself for the postcard for Tokyo where she lives.
Rino made color copies of the postcards and connected them with tape.
This summer, she visited the Miyagi prefectural government building and the Higashi-Matsushima city hall with her mother to deliver the circle of postcards.
Higashi-Matsushima Mayor Hideo Abe said, "I feel energized whenever I look at the postcards when I am exhausted."
With six months having passed since the earthquake struck, Rino is concerned about reduced coverage of the disaster victims.
"The rebuilding process will be delayed if everyone's interest should wane," she said. "I hope people will continue to think about the disaster areas. I hope this circle of postcards will help in that effort."
She has made color copies for six circles of postcards. She plans to place them in different locations so many people can see it.