Making contact. Hiroshima and plutonium's future.

This radio programme is a dramatised story about a Japanese 11-year-old girl, Sadako, who lived close to Hiroshima and 1000 origami paper cranes (birds). The origami cranes are made of paper for World Peace Day. The story is set in 1954. Sadako is a keen runner, unfortunately, she becomes sick with leukaemia. There is a Japanese fable that if you make 1000 cranes then you will live for 1000 years. She died in 1955, having not yet completed her 1000 origami cranes. A statue in Peace Park commemorates this on August 6th. This story was narrated by Liv Ulman; music by George Winston. An activist, Mayumi Oda, director and spokewoman for 'Women for a Plutonium Free Future', explains how Japanese children cling to the ritual of making origami cranes and how she became an anti-nuclear activist.