Because of our deep concern that the A-bomb experience could fade away with time and awareness of the importance of peace may be diminishing, particularly among the youth, in fiscal 2001 we created the Program to Promote Communication of the A-bomb Experience. The theme of the program is "Communicating the A-bomb Experiences to Future Generations". We are now performing disciplined analyses of the meaning of the A-bomb experience and are exploring means of communication that suit future generations. We are also looking a ways of ensuring efficient collaboration among all city government offices in communicating the A-bomb experience.

Projects
[Project to Communicate the A-bomb Experience to Future Generations]
Reinforce peace studies/Invite and provide support for school field trips/Use "Sadako" and paper cranes/Use A-bombed buildings and trees/Analyze the A-bomb experience through a variety of academic disciplines.

[Project to Lay the Groundwork for Communicating the A-bomb Experience]
Study, collect and organize the A-bomb materials/Digitalize A-bomb experiences/Collaborate with private sector activities

Children and students who come to Hiroshima on school field trips are given the opportunity to listen to survivors' testimonies and talk to survivors. They also watch A-bomb documentary films.

[Field trip in 2002] 1,558 groups; 135,578 people

To stimulate greater citizen participation in conveying the atomic bomb experience, volunteers were recruited in 1998 to offer guided tours of the Peace Memorial Museum and to Peace Memorial Park and vicinity. In 1999, the initial group completed a training course, and the volunteer-guided tours began.

[Registered volunteers] 128 as of April fisical, 2003

To convey the facts about the atomic bombing and arouse international public opinion in favor of nuclear abolition, in 1996 Hiroshima City began holding A-bomb exhibitions in (on average) three Japanese cities per year. Besides displaying A-bomb artifacts and photo panels, the exhibitions offer visitors the opportunity to hear A-bomb eyewitness testimonials. The cities that plan to host such exhibitions in 2003 are Nishinomiya, Nara and Ohtsu. To date, A-bomb exhibitions have been held in Niigata, Otaru, Sapporo, Kitahiroshima, Sendai, Morioka, Yamagata, Utsunomiya, Mito, Yokohama, Chiba, Urawa, Maebashi, Fukushima cities, Tokyo (Katsushika-ku and Meguro-ku), Kawasaki, Gifu, Nagoya, Nagano and Matsumoto Cities.

More than fifty years after the bombings, the survivors are aging and their numbers dwindling. Since 1986, we have been recording about 50 survivor testimonies each year on videotape to ensure that the A-bomb experience will be passed on to succeeding generations. We manage a loan program for those tapes. In 1995, we recorded on tape the testimonies of 30 Korean returnee survivors.

[Total recorded testimonies: 850 as of April fiscal 2003]

Hiroshima City loans A-bomb photo posters and panels, drawings by survivors, and A-bomb documentary videos to groups and individuals in Japan and overseas that sponsor A-bomb exhibitions or conducting peace studies.
Sixty eight set of panels and 125 set of posters were loaned in 2002.

To preserve, utilize, and communicate to future generations the A-bomb experience and the facts of the bombing, Hiroshima has been working since fiscal 1992 to gather and organize information related to A-bomb damage, peace research, peace activities, and other peace-related subjects, and to build a systematic peace database. Initial data entry was completed in fiscal 1998, and full-scale use of the database has begun. Previously accessible by people visiting the Museum only, the system was upgraded in December 1999 and is now accessible over the Internet.

To convey the desire for peace manifested in the paper cranes that have been folded by people around the world, we held a Sadako Exhibition in fiscal year 2001. The displays presented episodes in the life of Sadako Sasaki as a starting point for introducing peace activities in Japan and other countries. Based on those displays, we created a 26-poster set which is now available for loaning.
We are studying how best to preserve and use the countless paper cranes sent from other places in Japan and around the world. As measures to this end, we built a roof over the cranes sent to the Children's Peace Monument to shelter them from the elements and continue to record in the Paper Crane Database the names of donors and how many cranes they donated. In 2002, we began a trial exhibition of donated paper cranes in the former Bank of Japan Hiroshima Branch.

In order to preserve and utilize A-bombed buildings still remaining in the city today as valuable materials telling us about the A-bombed experience, we have compiled a resister of such buildings and are working to cultivate awareness of the importance of their preservation. We also grant subsidies of up to 30 million Japanese Yen per building for private-sector preservation construction projects.
Furthermore, in fiscal year 2000 we started a new project to heal A-bombed trees and since then have been drawing up record cards and prescriptions for the trees as well as taking measures necessary to ensure their recovery.

[Registered cases]

Category	Registered cases
Buildings	94
Bridge girders	6
Trees	52
Total	152

(As of March 2004)

To prevent erosion and fading of the A-bomb experience, we are installing A-bomb damage explanation boards with pictures of each building immediately following the bombing.

[Number installed] 45 (as of April 2003)

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum opened in 1955 to "convey to people throughout the world the magnitude of damage inflicted by the atomic bomb and to spread the spirit of Hiroshima, that is, contribute to the effort to abolish nuclear weapons and achieve lasting world peace." Its tasks include: 1) gathering, preserving, displaying, and making available materials related to peace and the atomic bomb disaster, 2) conducting research regarding the atomic bomb disaster, and 3) providing a setting that encourages contemplation of peace through programs of peace studies and forums for conveying the A-bomb experience.
The Peace Memorial Museum is comprised of two buildings: The West Building (the former Peace Memorial Museum), which was renovated in 1991 and the East Building (the former Peace Memorial Hall), which was renovated and added to the museum in 1994. The East Building displays trace Hiroshima's history prior to and after World War II, while the West Building displays belongings of victims, A-bomb artefacts, etc. Each year, upwards of one million people from around the world, including Japanese students on school excursions, visit the museum.