Dialogue with Japanese A-Bomb Survivors and Nuclear Weapons Abolitionists

 

When: Thursday, April 30, 2015, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

 

Where: Cambridge Friends Meeting • 5 Longfellow Park • off Brattle St near Harvard Sq • Cambridge

Tadao Yamato (Left) and Shiro Kawamoto (Right)

Space is limited- you MUST pre-register for the Potluck & Dialogue here:  http://goo.gl/forms/ZE5qNW9YWz
47 Japanese anti-nuclear weapons community activists, joined by two survivors of the 1945 A-bomb attacks (hibakusha), will visit Boston April 30 to educate and meet with students and community groups.  The two survivors are Mr. Tadao Yamato, age 74, and Mr. Shiro Kawamoto, age 78, both from Shizuoka, Japan.
The activists will be in the U.S. because the world’s governments are gathering at the United Nations April 27 for a major nuclear weapons conference, the Non Proliferation Treaty Review. They will join with peace, anti-nuclear weapons and community activists from across the United States and around the world at Peace and Planet, a march, rally and peace festival on April 26 which will demand that the nuclear powers commence the good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
The 47 activists who will visit Boston will be part of a delegation of more than 1,000 Japanese community activists, 50 atomic bomb survivors and scholars who will be educating diplomats and audiences about what they witnessed and endured and the imperative of creating a nuclear weapons free world. The delegation will also include young people and an activist from Okinawa.
With the aging of the A-bomb survivors, there will be few other similar opportunities for rising generations to hear and learn from them on first hand and intimate bases.
Their visit to Boston is hosted by the American Friends Service Committee and by Massachusetts Peace Action’s Peace and Planet project. The visit will conclude with a potluck and dialogue on Thursday, April 30, Cambridge Friends Meeting, 5 Longfellow Park; the public is invited to participate. Potluck 6pm, dialogue 7pm.  Space is limited- you MUST pre-register for the Potluck & Dialogue here:  http://goo.gl/forms/ZE5qNW9YWz

Profiles of the Hibakusha visiting Boston Area 
KAWAMOTO Shiro (Mr.), Shizuoka A-Bomb Survivors Association
A-bombed in Hiroshima at age 8 inside Hiroshima city and suffered burns.  His father died two weeks later and his mother took five boys, including Shiro, and moved to Nagano, her hometown, where the family suffered extreme poverty.  Since early 1980s, he has worked in the leadership position of Shizuoka A-Bomb Survivors Association, and joined the NGO delegation to observe the 2010 NPT Review in New York.  Currently he also serves as Co-convener of the March 1st Bikini Day Rally held annually in Yaizu, Shizuoka.
YAMATO Tadao (Mr.), Shizuoka A-Bomb Survivors Association
He was 5 years old when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  Six months before the atomic bombing, his family had moved to the outskirts of Hiroshima at about 3.5 kilometers from ground zero, and fortunately escaped severe damage.  However he had a stomach cancer in 2008, 63 years after the A-bombing and removed 3/4 of his stomach, which was officially recognized as the A-bomb disease by the Japanese government.
For more information or to schedule a speaking engagement, contact Joseph Gerson (AFSC) 617-661-6130 or Cole Harrison (Peace Action) 617-354-2169 (cole@masspeaceaction.org).  Space is limited- you MUST pre-register for the Potluck & Dialogue here:  http://goo.gl/forms/ZE5qNW9YWz
For information on Peace & Planet go to peaceandplanet.org, or masspeaceaction.org/event/peace-and-planet for local information.  

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