YES PEACE! SDGs Happy Earth Parade”

#SDGAction42966

Description

Intro

We organized a parade on the 21st of April with the theme of SDG’s and Peace to coincide with the opening day of “Earth Day Tokyo 2018”. 
The goals of this event was to raise awareness of world peace and to build bet-ter connections among individual citizen group members through this event. 
On the day, approximately three hundred participant enjoyed this parade in Shibuya (Tokyo, Japan). Some people were singing and dancing too.

Objective of the practice

In Japan, not only do various civic groups not work together, different groups working on the same issue do not work together, resulting in objectives not be-ing attained. This motivates us to do something. Additionally, activities are mundane and do not interest younger generations, resulting in a lack of coop-eration between generations. 
 
At this point the NPO group “No More Hibakusha” was initiated in 2015 and in-vited people to participate in the parade to promote the desire for peace held by victims of nuclear technology through promoting inter-group cooperation. Sub-sequently in 2018 on the basis of SDG’s, a parade that nuclear victims could also participate in was held. 
 
We believe our goals are being achieved through this parade and the speed of achievement will continue to increase through to 2020. We also feel this pro-ject means a lot for all of us to speak up for the world peace since there are lim-ited chances to have such world peace gatherings in Japan.

Partners

The recipients of this project will be the civil group members and individuals who engage in environment issues, peace, and Multicultural Symbiotic Socie-ties.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

One of the NPO groups “No More Hibakusha” have held Hibakusha exhibi-tions internationally. They proposed this event to help achieve the objective of a peaceful world. We have promoted this project in many different ways such as posting this event’s details on our homepage and SNS, giving out flyers, person-to-person networking, and various other methods.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

In total, 22 groups and about 300 people joined the parade. On the day, one of the participants was a monk who brought a torch bearing the embers of the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima There were not only hibakusha, but Para-lympic athletes and handicapped people also participated to help foster world peace.

Also, not only the flags of various nations, but the joint North/South Korea uni-ty flag from the Pyeong Chang Winter Olympics was also raised.
Many people who lined the streets where the parade occurred, in Shibuya and Harajuku, Tokyo, took pictures of this parade and posted them on SNS.

Enabling factors and constraints

We made all preparations within only two months and everything was financed by individual donations.
Although our budget was very tight we made many new friends who have be-come assets for our objective of world peace. We were able to prove that there is a desire by civic groups to work together

We also expressed our beliefs of the world peace, love, mother earth, and a sustainable society. We beleive this action moved participants minds.

We have received so much positive feedbacks from participants. Some told us “I wish to participate again next year”and “it was the most enjoyable parade in my life”..

It is important to “object”, however in Japan increasingly people feel the is less gained by the traditional means of objecting.We believe the is significant power in the word “Yes”, and by promoting activities as being “super-positive” it is eas-ier for people to participate.

In order to enlarge our project we chose to move the parade start to the offices of the UN University in Japan, which is keen to promote the idea of SDGs

Sustainability and replicability

We decided to change from NPO No More Hibakusha managing this parade to an organizing committee being used to organize this event. Through doing this we hope a younger generation, including university students, will become in-volved in organizing this event.

As well as strengthening our promotion activities it is our intention to crowd fund the event in conjunction with other Tokyo Earth Day projects.

We are, through this parade, hoping to spread the idea “You can enjoy this event even though the theme of the event is severe”.

Conclusions

We think it is our duty to increase the awareness of SDGs since SDGs are not well known in Japan. 
 
We set two goals. Through our “SDGs Happy Earth Parade”; to raise the awareness of SDGs in Japan and also to change the culture of Japanese civic groups to one where the collaborate and work together. 
 
We also support abolishing nuclear weapons, an idea promoted far and wide when ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize. If nuclear weapons were used, SDGs will never be achieved. Therefore, we keep promoting our two goals with the belief “No more Hiroshima, No more Nagasaki, No more Fukushima”. 
 
Additionally, in Japan which has a very high rate of suicide, through the pa-rade we wish to reach out to those in society who have lost hope and are de-pressed, to show them there are those who care, and in so doing give people strength

Other sources of information

In 2018, Tokyo Earth Day Tokyo was promoted by more than 360 small to large media organizations, with the parade being promoted as well.

Earth Day Tokyo2018
http://www.earthday-tokyo.org/2018/04/04/5736

SDGs Happy Earth Parade
https://www.facebook.com/events/346115285905741/

NPO NoMore Hibakusha
https://www.no-more-hibakusha.net/

Optional photos that illustrate the good practice (only image files are accepted)

Start date

14/02/2018

Date of completion

On progress. We will hold this event on April 21st, 2019.

SDGS & Targets

Goal 16

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels