Koro High School students to attend tsunami summit in Japan
Students from Koro High School will be attending the High School Students Summit on World Tsunami Awareness Day 2018 in Wakayama, Japan.
This will be the third Summit hosted by Japan since the establishment of the World Tsunami Awareness Day in December 2015.
The 2018 summit will be a special event since Wakayama is the home of Mr. Hamaguchi Goryo, who is known in Japan as a hero who saved the lives of his fellow villagers from an impending tsunami by burning his rice sheaves to guide people to higher ground on November 5, 1854.
For this reason, the November 5 date was adopted by the UN General Assembly and recognised as the World Tsunami Awareness Day to commemorate the heroic actions of Hamaguchi Goryo.
The Permanent Secretary for Education Alison Burchell highlighted that the selection of Koro High School to represent Fiji in this summit is important, given their experience on the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Winston including the tidal waves that struck parts of Koro Island.
“I hope that you will share your experiences and at the same time learn from the experiences of other students from different countries”, Ms Burchell said.
Koro High School will be joined by Motufoua Secondary School from Tuvalu to participate in this Summit.
Japan’s Ambassador Masahiro Omura hosted a send-off reception for students from the two schools earlier the past week.
Ambassador Omura hopes that the Summit will provide the students the opportunity to acquire knowledge on disaster reduction and understand the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis.
He further added that the Summit will also provide students better understanding on how to save lives and the importance of implementing policies on disaster mitigation and risk reduction, rapid rehabilitation and reconstruction.
The High School Students Summit on World Tsunami Awareness Day will be held on Wednesday and Thursday.
A total 487 participants from around world will attend the Summit with a theme of “To protect people’s lives from disasters, let’s learn together the spirit of Hamaguchi Goryo in Wakayama, at the birthplace of the story of “Inamura-no-Hi”.
Marist Brothers High School and Ratu Kadavulevu School attended the 2016 and 2017 summit respectively.