Raising children who create peace
and creating an earth where children can live with peace of mind
Business entrepreneur Taeko Tada lives in Hiroshima, the city where she was born and raised. She lost her grandparents in World War II and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. When she was 10, she suffered a brain hemorrhage in a traffic accident, but miraculously recovered. In gratitude for her survival she vowed to become a businesswoman who would work for society’s benefit. Today she is the representative of the Peace Piece Project, a general incorporated association, which created the world’s largest origami paper crane in 2010 and made the Guinness Book of World Records. She wrote the manga The Hiroshima Miracle, which has been published in several languages since 2014. In 2016, then-president Barack Obama of the United States sent a letter saying he had been moved by the story. Since 2020 she has organized the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Children’s World Peace Summits, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Brain hemorrhage due to traffic accident.
To express gratitude being alive, has aimed to become an entrepreneur who is useful for society.
By the atomic bomb, my great-grandmother lost everything and my mother who was still young at that time lost her parents. My great-grandmother rebuilt her business while raising my mother. I grew up watching her way of living. “I also want to become an entrepreneur who can help those who are important like a great-grandmother!” I had a desire to start a business since I was three years old.
When I was ten years old, I became a dying heavy body due to brain hemorrhage due to a bicycle traffic accident, I wandered the boundary of life and death. The doctor declared that my survival probability is several% and even if I am lucky I would be bedridden or half-paralyzed. However I was allowed to leave the hospital in 2 weeks under the supervision of a great doctor. It was miracle! I experienced fear of death in the emergency ward hospital room where the neighboring hospital room people groan and drown every day. After facing death, my view on life and death changed and I became to appreciate being alive. I decided to make a “vow” to express my thanks being alive. As a proof of that appreciation, I decided to aim for an entrepreneur who is useful to society. I started reading the great mentions at the library and learning about “what kind of things would be useful for society” and “what kind of way of life is aimed”.
Experience in America at the time of junior high school students
became the courage to start a business at the age of 18
My mother was planning to let me go to the United States as a junior high school first grader, before I was born. She let me experience various Japanese culture such as tea ceremony, flower arrangement, calligraphy, Aikido, Japanese music since I was a kindergarten. At that time it was 250 dollars per dollar. I think that it costed quite a bit. Still, my mother seemed to want me to experience American culture. My mother’s friend was an executive at Tokyo Bank. The party at home was full of entrepreneurs of various nationalities. I had the opportunity to meet such many nationalities entrepreneurs for the first time. However, as everyone was shining so gently, the entrepreneur image in me improved even better. Today, it is a water server that is also widely used in general households, but in American general households over 30 years ago there was one in one room. Every time I touched a product that I never saw in Japan, such as disposable, I felt a big business opportunity, “There are still many businesses that are not successful in Japan but I am successful in the US”. The experience at this time gave me courage and confidence in my entrepreneurial work “new business has opportunities”.
Caused by monument visit volunteers in high school days.
The desire to transmit world peace from Hiroshima.
Since I was a high school student, I participated in a volunteer activity to guide the monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. However, none of the materials conveyed only the misery of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. People who came to peace learning said, “When I come to Hiroshima, I recall the history of the painful atomic bomb, so I do not want to come to Hiroshima any more.” I have experienced sad times over and over. “Hiroshima’s atomic bomb exhibition” is still being held in various countries all over the world. There, Hiroshima, which became a burning field just after the atomic bombing, and only the miserable photo panels of burned people’s burns are displayed. I felt the gap with the image of the current Hiroshima and became a big sorrow in me. I learned that Hiroshima still remains the image of “Hiroshima of the A-bomb site” as symbolized by “Black Rain” including radiation, among people all over the world. And I got a big shock. Hiroshima is not a city with only sad memories. It is a “reconstruction city” full of hope that revived spectacularly from the rubble. I was hoping that many people would know that Hiroshima is a city that wishes for peace.
Started a business as a student.
At the age of 18, based on her experience as Miss JR Hiroshima, she started a business with her own funds to train and dispatch “Narrator Models” who have the abilities of both announcer and model, and developed it nationwide with a staff of 800. After graduation, she worked as a personality for NHK, and also built up her career as a celebrity interviewer and producer of programs. In 1996, she established TSP Co., Ltd..
TSP Co., Ltd. established the Renewable Energy Business Division in 2010 to contribute to a safer power supply and launched a solar power generation business. As the economies of Southeast Asia and Africa continue to develop, the global population is increasing by more than 200 million people every year. It is said that the world population will exceed 10 billion by 2100. Economic development equals environmental destruction, which is a critical issue that must be avoided at all costs. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 made us keenly aware of the importance of promoting renewable energy, and we have been developing a nationwide solar energy sales brokerage business to promote the spread of renewable energy. We are promoting our business with the desire to protect our precious earth and create a happy future 20 years from now. For more information about our business ＞＞＞
Wish for the happiness of the people, wearing pink clothes 365 days.
I came to be called “Pink Shacho”, from the time achieved the Guinness Record.
In 2009, I prayed for world peace and attempted to make the “World’s Largest Origami Crane,” which was recognized by Guinness World Records the following year. I am honored to share the same birthday as Mother Teresa. When asked, “What should I do for world peace?” I was impressed by Mother Teresa’s words of wisdom, “Go home and take care of your family,” and understood that the shortest path to world peace is “to grow a large group of happy people. From this thought, I decided to call this project “Peace Piece Project” because I believe that if each person’s small piece of love (Piece) is gathered together, it can create a big peace (Peace).
Since the press conference for the Guinness World Records challenge, I have worn pink every day, 365 days a year, praying for the happiness of everyone I meet, and I have been nicknamed “Pink Shacho” by everyone. I was inspired to wear pink when an American friend called me “Taeko is in the Pink” when I was in junior high school in the U.S. When I asked what “in the Pink” meant, I was told that it meant “in the Pink” and that I should wear pink. When I asked her what “in the Pink” meant, she told me it meant “full of happiness. Other nice meanings included “healthy” and “in great shape. Pink, which is also used in color therapy, is a color with “power to make you healthy” and is said to reduce the amount of carcinogenic substances by one-tenth just by looking at it, and to secrete substances in the brain such as beta-endorphin and dopamine.
Hiroshima Olympics Support Team
After achieving the Guinness record for the “World’s Largest Origami Crane,” our next activity was to form the Hiroshima Olympic Cheering Squad in February 2010, when the then mayor of Hiroshima announced his vision for the Hiroshima Olympics, and we launched a campaign for 1 million signatures for the 2020 Hiroshima Olympics to be held. The group launched a campaign for one million signatures in support of the 2020 Hiroshima Olympics. Every week, mainly university students took to the streets to call for signatures and visited various parts of Japan to collect signatures, and 600,000 signatures were received from all over the country. People who were living in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing went around to local government offices and collected signatures and sent them to us, saying that they wanted to support the holding of the Olympics in Hiroshima. I also sold my possessions to raise funds to support the Olympics. The number of people in Hiroshima who wanted to hold the Olympics, a festival of peace, increased, and stimulated by the fact that so many signatures were collected to hold the Olympics in Hiroshima, a small but growing number of people began to call for holding the Olympics in Tokyo. However, in April 2011, the mayor of Hiroshima, who had proposed the idea of the Hiroshima Olympics, suddenly decided not to run, and a mayor who did not support hosting the Olympics was elected, and the Hiroshima Olympics disappeared as a dream. I spent many sleepless nights in shock and helplessness at the abrupt end of the project despite the support of so many people. I stood in front of the golden statue of Jeanne d’Arc in Paris, where I had traveled in search of salvation, and recalled Jeanne d’Arc, who burned to death in the middle of her ambition, and I thought, “I am still alive. There must still be something I can do, and I will not give up. At the same time, I recalled my great-grandmother who lost her house, company, and family in the atomic bombing. Compared to my great-grandmother’s loss, my shock was incomparable. Never giving up, I said, “Let’s move forward with the dream of a peace festival!” and moved forward.
Telling how to create peace
from the historical facts of Hiroshima revival
By the way, some of you may not have a concrete image in mind when you hear the phrase “world peace. As the long months have passed since the end of World War II, there are very few people who have direct experience of what happened at the time of the war and remember the reconstruction. We must learn that the peace we have today is maintained by the efforts of many of our predecessors and how they built peace. About 250 million children in the world live in countries and regions where there is conflict. It is a very urgent and important task to create a planet where children can live in peace, no matter what kind of environment they were born and raised in. Peace Piece Project defines the realization of world peace as the creation of a planet where children can live in peace. After setting a Guinness record for the world’s largest origami crane, forming a support group to invite the Olympics to Hiroshima, and submitting over 600,000 signatures to the mayor, we incorporated the Peace Peace Project in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. In the same year, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, we also wrote and self-published the manga “The Hiroshima Miracle,” a true story of great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, and women who supported the reconstruction of Hiroshima despite the loss of most of their male hands in the war.
We created this manga based on the historical fact that the people of Hiroshima overcame their difficulties and recovered by looking forward and holding on to hope, even in the midst of devastating circumstances, and on the theme of the importance of peace, praying that people will be able to love and respect each other with a forgiving heart instead of hatred. In March 2016, we published an English version, in 2017, a combined Japanese version, and in 2020, a French version through crowdfunding. The e-book is free and open to everyone. Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. President Barack Obama sent us a thank-you letter saying that he was “moved” when he read “The Hiroshima Miracle. I was so moved! We sincerely hope that all people who read “The Hiroshima Miracle” will be able to realize a conflict-free and peaceful world one day sooner, with a “spirit of forgiveness” and a “spirit of compassion and mutual respect”. If you are interested, we would be honored if you could pick up a copy of the book and take a look at it, and use it for your peace education.
Expanding Circle to Realize World Peace
At the time of the atomic bombing, it was said that “no grass or trees would grow for 75 years” in Hiroshima, but the canna flower gave people hope by blooming. I met the student council members of Shimizu Junior High School in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, who were working hard to “prevent bullying by using pink” inspired by Canada’s pink shirt movement. In October 2020, we visited the school and held a peace class with all 372 students to discuss “how to make the people in front of us happy for world peace.
Currently hosting the Children's World Peace Summit
with children from around the world.
It started with the desire to “realize world peace” that began with his miraculous survival from a brain hemorrhage caused by a car accident when he was 10 years old. Since 2009, we have continued our activities as the Peace Piece Project, and since 2015, we have been incorporated. However, I ran into a big wall that the realization of world peace could not be achieved simply by converting and promoting my personal funds. The Hiroshima Miracle” comic strip has been a way for me to promote peace education through a limited number of people who are interested in Hiroshima and who have met me in person. However, having had a near-death experience at the age of 10, I felt that this activity was in danger of not continuing due to my death. I hope that future generations will continue to have a desire for peace without ceasing. With this wish in mind, I decided to work with teenagers, known as “SDGs natives,” to create peace in the future. Therefore, we have decided to launch the “Children’s World Peace Summit” where children will think about “what peace means to me” from their own standpoints and present their “ideas for realizing world peace. Hoping that the Children’s World Peace Summit would grow into a national project, we decided to hold it at the International Conference Hall of the House of Representatives, which is used by leaders from many countries. We believe that it is very meaningful for teenagers to present not the history of war, but what they can do to create peace.
My goal is to hold this Children’s World Peace Summit with 100 million children from 100 countries at the Osaka-Kansai Expo in 2025. By gathering small thoughts for peace, we are moving forward toward the realization of world peace. I would be happy if you could support us.
