“I realize now that resilience isn’t just about surviving the worst, but what you do after. How you choose to carry that pain, whether you let it weigh you down or turn it into something that creates change.”
– D. Lebanese student at the Oleander Initiative
One year ago, Aline, a Lebanese alumnus of our 2017 Oleander Initiative Middle East program, contacted us to run a program for her students in Hiroshima.
To Aline, the lessons of Hiroshima she experienced in 2017 – resilience, the ability to move forward, trauma recovery, and peace – were never more relevant to her students.
Aline implementing Hiroshima lesson plan in her classroom
However, as violence raged throughout the Middle East region during 2024, her vision of her students learning the “lessons of Hiroshima” in person seemed impossible.
During this difficult time, Aline kept moving forward. She designed her Hiroshima curriculum when the fighting shuttered her school and led the admissions process during power outages.
When a fragile ceasefire took hold, Aline and her students rushed to the newly reopened Japanese embassy and received their visas just days before their travel. On the day of their flight, mass demonstrations in Beirut forced them to miss their plane. Determined and undeterred, Aline and her students somehow booked the next flight out of Hariri International airport.
7,000 miles, 2 transfers and 31 hours later, they arrived in Hiroshima, Japan.
Arrival at Haneda Airport
Framed by their recent experiences with war and violent conflict, the 8 Lebanese students explored the following questions:
- How did the people of Hiroshima manage their trauma to move forward, unite and rebuild their city more beautiful than before?
- What was the key to their incredible resilience after such loss and devastation?
- Why did they rebuild Hiroshima as the City of Peace?
- What lessons of Hiroshima are applicable to the Lebanese students’ schools and communities?
To gain insight into these questions, the students:
Visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Peace Park
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Listened to the words of the hibakusha, victims of the atomic bomb victims
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“I grasped one of the main lessons of Hiroshima, that hope and the strength to forgive don’t come from nothing. It comes from the anger within and what one chooses to do with it. If the people of Hiroshima didn’t choose to channel their anger into resilience and strength, maybe the city wouldn’t have been able to recover this fast.”
– R. Lebanese student at the Oleander Initiative
And learned about how the people of Hiroshima channeled their trauma into the process of recovery and rebuilding.
Oleander participants at the Motomachi community museum
The Motomachi community museum documents how this tight knit community living in this historically underserved section of Hiroshima steadily rebuilt their district after the dropping of the atomic bomb.
Photos of the reconstruction process
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Aerial photograph of the Hiroshima Motomachi district in 1945 and rooftop photo of the district in 2025
The Oleander Initiative prides itself in facilitating a symmetrical flow of learning between our visitors and the Hiroshima community. The Lebanon, Resilience, Rebuilding and Peace program featured two opportunities for the Lebanese students to present their culture, country and daily lives to their fellow students and then to the broader Hiroshima community.
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Oleander participants presenting and engaging in discussion sessions at Jogakuin High School
For the Hiroshima residents, it was a unique opportunity to hear the first hand experiences of young people who have endured active conflict throughout their lives.
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Oleander participants presenting the situation in Lebanon to the Hiroshima peace community
For the students, it was a valuable opportunity to reflect on their own roles for peacebuilding by articulating the challenges facing Lebanon to an outside audience.
This constant back and forth between the Hiroshima and Oleander participants’ communities, discussing and reflecting on what is applicable and what is not, is one of the main drivers of learning at the Oleander Initiative.
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Origami folding workshop at the Honkawa school
Messages of Peace to be dedicated at the Hiroshima Children’s Memorial on August 6, 2025
” Right now, I don’t think I can talk about peace the way they do. Not when Lebanon is still going through so much. But maybe one day, we’ll get there; able to tell our story with hope instead of just grief. Ill keep fighting for the space and the conversations that can lead to peace, however uncomfortable, just as Hiroshima has taught me.”
-T. Lebanese student at the Oleander Initiative
Many thanks to Aline whose incredible will and determination made this program possible. We are proud to have implemented this program when the message of resilience, hope and peace was most timely.
All of us are looking forward to the impact the Lebanese students will make on their schools and communities during this academic year and beyond.
Warm wishes for peace,
Ray Matsumiya
Executive Director, Oleander Initiative