July 29 – August 6, 2013

15 cheerful junior high students arrived in Hawaii from Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima from Japan.
At first, in the official residence of the Consulate General Japan in Honolulu, Mr. and Mrs. Consul General Shigeeda, RFJK Hawaii members, volunteers and Ohana introduce themselves to each other.
All children of the 7th successive program of “Rainbow For Japan Kids” gave us their self-introduction as well.
Many activities are waiting for them from now on in Hawaii.
Representative of Nadeshiko0 Club, Mrs. Hiromi Okada, joined the children and told them about Hawaii on the way to the north shore by bus.
A typhoon passed Hawaii when they arrived at the north shore.
They had a camping area in north shore and RFJK members and local children joined them.
They did various activities together and made friends with each other!
They did wall-climbing, archery, swimming in the pool and the ocean until they became extremely tired.
After dinner, they did some cultural activities such as bead craft and made bracelets with shells together.
At night, they enjoyed the campfire.
They had “s’mores” for the first time.
The strong wind caused the fire to be very hot and the children were surprised by the intensity of it.
They visited the famous Hawaiian ukulele maker “Ko Aloha” after finishing the activity at the campground on the north shore.
They experienced the making of the Hawaiian musical instrument the ukulele.
At Ko Aloha, the family and their employees are making ukuleles with ohana (family) warm spirit for their ukulele fans. They receive purchase orders from around the world every day, but on that day, they stopped producing and helped the Tohoku children making their own ukuleles.
All of the the children then enjoyed barbecue very much after that as well.
After the ukulele making experience at Ko Aloha, they returned to the UH dormitory and had a “talk session” with people from Hawaii.
People from Hawaii told the children about various types of their work and the children then talked about their dreams and the things that they will want to do in the future.
Adults in the talk session were very impressed that the children have a grand dream of the future.
During the program, Miku and Toshiyasu had a chance to be on Kzoo radio (Japanese radio station in Hawaii).
The children observed from inside of the radio station.
By the cooperation of Hilton Grand Vacation, the children enjoyed beach activities at their lagoon and the beach.
At night, they had a dinner party in the garden at the Hale Koa Hotel next to the Hilton hotel.
The highlight of the event was to watch the fireworks of the Hilton Hotels before their eyes!
They were very excited because they have never seen fireworks so close like this before.

On the last day, they had a farewell party at Tendai Hawaii.
Supporting volunteers also joined the farewell party and enjoyed watching the children’s dance performance, comedy and the speech.
I enjoyed the programs such as speeches.
The children went back to Japan today with many souvenirs and an abundance of warm awesome good memoriesand experiences. They could not leave Hawaii without tears when we sent them off.
We all believe that they will grow up magnificently without forgetting “the spirit of Aloha”.
From departure to return home, Ms. Masami Kanetani, a chaperon and staff of Miyagi Bikki Children’s Fund and Mr. Hidenori Takahashi from Nissin Travel Service as a travel conductor led the entire program this time.