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Amy makes peace pilgrimage

2/ 8/2005

LITTLEBOROUGH teenager Amy Gilligan has travelled to Japan to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Amy, aged 17, of Deanhead, is a member of Littleborough Peace Group and has gone with fellow group member Rae Street to attend peace marches and rallies.

These will remember the victims and survivors of the bombings that brought an end to World War Two.

Amy will make a speech at a youth conference in Hiroshima, before moving on to Nagasaki.

Amy is a CND supporter and, along with other members of Littleborough Peace Group, has been making paper peace cranes to send to people in the Japanese cities.

The St Cuthbert's High School pupil began making them after reading a story about a 12-year-old girl from Hiroshima.

She contracted leukaemia after the bomb was dropped on her city and started making the cranes after the young girl heard that if you made 1,000 you could have a wish granted.

She died before reaching her target, but since then the cranes have become a symbol of peace.

Amy said: "It's important for young people to be involved, because the threat of nuclear weapons still exists. It's important we create a more peaceful world."

Mrs Street, chairman of Manchester CND and vice-chairman of the national group, will make a speech while she is Japan, as well as taking some of the cranes the group has made to the peace park in Hiroshima.

Littleborough Peace Group will hold its own commemoration service at Hollingworth Lake on Saturday, starting at 2pm.