As the inaugural initiative of the newly created “Japan Committee” of Sister Cities International, this project will promote the simultaneous ringing of bells in sister cities across the United States and Japan to mark 75 years of peace since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We call on citizen diplomats and city leaders to coordinate these bell ringings in sister cities across the United States and Japan. These can be bells big and small—houses of worship, hand bells, call bells, cow bells…anything! Bell ringing should occur twice–first at 4:15pm, Wednesday, August 5 (U.S. PDT) and second at 7:02pm, Saturday, August 8 (U.S. PDT), to coincide with the actual times and dates the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. It is each city’s choice to participate on August 5, August 8, or both. All information on this project, including a couple of examples of how to design your city’s commemoration ceremony, can be found here.
We have also created templates of a letter to your mayor and a city proclamation that you can use to get started on organizing your local efforts! This is a locally led, nationally supported project, so our national organization will not be holding an event of their own. This means the details of this project are entirely up to you, but should you have any general questions, please feel free to reach out to us. In any case, if you plan on ringing bells in your city, please let us know by filling out this very simple form so that we can keep track! At the conclusion of this project, we ask that you send all photos and recordings to [email protected] so that we may create one large video/slideshow of our collective efforts. Please use the hashtag #USJapanBells in your social media posts. We hope you will help us spread the message of peace across the Pacific Ocean to our sister cities in Japan, with bells ringing clearly enough for the whole world to hear!
UPDATE
We have added two new documents to assist you in organizing your local bell ringing ceremonies.
- Japanese translation of the project information to send to your Japanese Sister Cities
- A Media Alert to distribute to all your local partners and media outlets
- A Press Release to distribute to your media outlets and local partners