In the three years that students attended a temporary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the landscape outside changed, as the rubble and debris gradually disappeared.
In the three years that students attended a temporary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the landscape outside changed, as the rubble and debris gradually disappeared.
The construction of public housing for evacuees also made progress.
High school students at the temporary building set up on a hill proudly held their graduation ceremony on March 1, looking back on a difficult three years of change and perseverance.
"There was some inconveniences, but nobody complained, and we all tried to positively pursue our studies," said Manae Takahashi, 18, in a graduation speech for her class at the city-run Joshi Shogyo (all-girls commercial) high school.
The ceremony, held in the city-run gymnasium, was attended by 71 class members who entered the school in spring 2012.
As they enrolled at a time when the memories of the disaster were still vivid, the teachers tried to make their school life as enjoyable as possible, planning many field trips. The faculty also tried to keep the students' learning environment comfortable by warming up classrooms before classes began in the wintertime.
The school will be terminated in April and join another city-run school to become Sakurazaka High School. The temporary school building is scheduled to be torn down before the summer.
"I'll miss the school, but I'm proud to be one of its last graduates," Takahashi said.
Also in the Tohoku region, the graduation ceremony for Iwate Prefectural Takata High School students was held at their temporary school building in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on March 1. The school is set to be reopened this spring in Rikuzentakata in the prefecture, where it originally stood before the 2011 disaster.
Nana Fujiwara, 18, the valedictorian of her 169-student graduating class, said in her speech at the ceremony, "We are grateful at how we are now able to casually live our daily lives."
Fujiwara's home in Ofunato was completely destroyed in the disaster, and she lost her grandmother to the tsunami. She could not stop crying afterward every night.
Fujiwara decided to enroll in Takata High School when she saw on a TV program how its students were determinedly trying to resume their lives despite the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami. Fujiwara spent her three years in the school eagerly participating in the student council and as a member of a table tennis club.
"I want to treasure what I learned through an inconvenient time throughout my life," she said following her graduation ceremony.
(This article was written by Akiko Nagashima and Yusuke Hoshino.)