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Leeds pupils receive message of thanks from Japan earthquake kids
THANK YOU: Japanese pupils with some of the gifts and their teacher Alison Nemoto, a former Gateways pupil.
Pupils in Leeds have received a resounding thanks from grateful youngsters almost 7,000 miles away.
Victims of the Japanese earthquake, which led to the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March last year, contacted students at Gateways School in Harewood to show their appreciation for a gift of much-needed text books, stationery, pencils and crayons.
The Leeds youngsters organised the collection after hearing the story of former Gateways student Alison Nemoto, who lives in Japan and experienced first-hand the devastating events.
The mum-of-three was living in Fukushima, her home for the past 14 years, with her husband, daughters and parents-in-law when the earthquake took place.
She said: “The tsunami’s deadly waves came with in 1km of our house.
“The next day in the evening we were ordered to leave the area and spent two nights in a school gymnasium with little food or heat.”
Since then they have been living in temporary accommodation 40kms north of their former home, which remains in the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Number One Nuclear Power Plant.
Alison, a teacher for 23 years, said teaching aids were desperately needed to replace those lost in the crisis.
She added it was wonderful to receive the package from kind-hearted Leeds pupils.
Alison said: “I gave out the crayons and stationery to children at Mano Primary School which was engulfed in March 2011 by the Tsunami.
“Luckily the children were evacuated to high ground quickly and all pupils were saved, but many of them lost homes and family members.”
Alison, who studied at Gateways from the age of 11 to 16, added: “I was very pleased that my old school friends wanted to help and also the pupils who were at Gateways now, wanted to help.
“The children and teachers were very moved that a school as far away as England was thinking of them.”
Yvonne Wilkinson, headteacher at Gateways, said: “It was wonderful to see the way in which the whole school supported the appeal to help victims of the Japanese earthquake disaster and it has been heart-warming to receive such a lovely message of thanks.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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