World Children's Haiku
The program aims to introduce art of haiku and enjoyment of composing haiku to children in the world,
and to encourage mutual understanding among those children. Also children
would have a chance to
understand both the Japanese culture from which haiku is born and present-day
Japan.
At present, the Foundation manages the administration of the "World Children's Haiku Contest", and
in addition to publishing an anthology of the winning entries called Haiku By World Children,
as well as Haiku seminars and workshops for both international and domestic
schools and organizations.
| Historical review - Haiku activities by JAL & JAL Foundation |
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In 1964, while the Tokyo Olympics were being held, Japan Airlines organized a Haiku contest on a U.S.
radio station, which sparked the popularity of this art form overseas.
Forty-one thousand (41,000) haiku
were submitted for this first contest.
After some interval, in 1982, JAL held a second haiku competition in the
US, this time for high school
students, as part of a tourism promotion program for Japan. In 1986, JAL
exhibited Japanese children’s
haiku in the Expo’86 held in Vancouver, Canada. Subsequently, JAL held
the first children’s haiku
contest in British Colombia, where fourteen thousand (14,000) entries were
made.
In 1987-88, JAL held a children’s haiku contest in the US and Canada, and forty-one thousand (41,000) haiku were submitted. This was followed by a primary school children’s haiku contest in Queensland, Australia in 1988, where sixteen thousand (16,000) haiku were submitted.
The winning entries of these three contests, in Canada, the US and Australia
from 1986-88, were compiled in a book entitled Haiku By the World’s Children, published in 1989.
In 1990, the responsibility for JAL’s haiku activities was transferred to the newly founded JAL Foundation, and the Foundation took advantage of the International Gardens and Greenery Exposition held in Osaka in the same year to inaugurate the worldwide children’s haiku contest with support from UNICEF.
There were about sixty thousand (60,000) entries from twenty-six countries
in the world.
Since then, JAL Foundation organize the contest biennially, and for each
contest, a haiku anthology
Haiku By World Children containing winning pieces is published by the Foundation.
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