On a roadside I came across a boy of five or six, crying "Ouch! Ouch!" I stopped my bicycle to ask the reason. He said, "I found a dead cicada in the grass nearby. I reached over to pick it up, but I cut my finger on a leaf."　I saw a one-centimeter cut in the ball of the finger, from which blood began to ooze.

　I didn't have any adhesive bandage, which I usually carry in my handbag, and since he said his house was nearby, I told him to go back home to tell his mother. However, he said, "My parents are not at home, they are working in their offices" looking up at me with an expression which seemed to say, "Please, help me", not caring that I am a stranger to him. When I looked around, I saw a gas station a short distant away, to which I ran to explain the situation. I returned with an adhesive bandage in my hand. The boy, who was on the verge of tears, suddenly beamed, watching me winding it around his finger. He said, "Thank you very much", very politely.

Now, I am engaged in an activity through which I have contact with boys and girls. One of them is a girl of seventeen, who has been working part time at an eating and drinking house in Shinjuku since graduating from junior high school. Although she has parents, a little brother and a little sister, she never goes back home. Instead she stays at one friend's place or another. After several talks with her, a sad picture came into my mind where she was having a meal alone in her home.

Another boy I contacted is a fourteen year-old junior high school student, who is in a detention centre. At the end of our talk, he muttered, "I wish I could have every supper with my family."

During the current recession, parents are busy making a decent living, believing their children understand the situation. Decades ago, any child could be cherished enough and grow up strong somehow even without their parents' care. However, in an urban community where a nuclear family is common and they do not even know their neighbour, a child might be helpless.

The problems of the above mentioned children would not be resolved just by having supper with their family members. However, it seems to me that such an ordinary practice could be more important than we think, because it may provide an opportunity to come in close contact with each other. The boy whose finger was cut might have just wanted to tell somebody what had happened to him, rather than complaining about his pain.

It came to my mind that years ago, child as I was, I felt happy when every foreigner who passed by smiled at me in my hometown Kobe. I also recall that when I was older, they said, "Excuse me" or "Before you" when they passed by me from behind. These days I seldom see Americans do so, and I thought it is due to the economic problem. But I was moved when I heard a friend of mine who came back from New York talking about the same experience I had in Kobe, saying that people there do not behave as they do in Japan now.

This time of the year marks the anniversary of the end of the war, so it is time for us to renew our pledge that we never launch into war again. I cannot think of a concrete way to tell children and young people the spirit of UNESCO, which says "since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." I would like to start with catching people's feeling, and look forward to the day when people smile more at each other again.