The Gingko Castle CAS project

The Kumamoto Castle, otherwise called the “Ginkgo Castle”, was created more than 400 years ago by Kiyomasa Kato, the lord of manor at that time. He has taken part in making Kumamoto a better place to live and so was admired by the locals. It has gone through battles and fire, but remains as it used to, giving hope to the people of Kumamoto.

However, in April 2016, a huge earthquake hit the southern region of Japan. It had the magnitude of 7, with max seismic scale of 6.5. There were 270 deaths, 1814 injuries and approximately 180,000 people were forced to flee from their homes (4700 still deprived of shelter). This caused $44B worth of economic deficit.

The area is heading to revival thanks to the priceless support offered through donations, voluntary activities, etc. Despite such efforts, its impacts still vividly remain.

The scar it left on the Japanese community is humongous, and the story will continue to be passed on to the next generations.

To repair the Castle, the latest technologies were used, as some parts of castle were about to collapse, and it was too dangerous for people to construct by hands. Therefore, enormous scaffoldings were put to prevent the castle from collapsing.

On top of that, due to the complex structure, putting back all the fallen rocks to the right positions is difficult therefore, another latest technology was utilized. With this technology, it enabled them to get the data of the shapes of each rock. This made the repair much more accurate and realistic.

However, the use of these technologies made the restoration of the castle very costly, so they needed to collect money. This is why they made the system where people can make donations and become the ‘Lord of a castle,’.

In order to raise the funds and awareness, we decided to sell goods in the Spring fare which occurred on 18th May 2019. Everyone made different things to sell. These are the lists of goods:

Earrings £2

Calendars £6

Postcards £1, £2 for 3 

Cakes 50p

Shiratama (traditional Japanese sweet) 50p

Warabi mochi (Japanese rice cake) 50p

And we received a kind donation from the visitors.

 

As a result, our team successfully ended up collecting ¥30000, which is about £180, and we believe that we were able to spread the awareness of the severe damage in Kumamoto due to the earthquake. One of our members, Ayaka, went to Kumamoto during the summer, to donate the money to the office of the castle. As evidence, we have received a certificate with our school name on it.

 

 

Thank you!

Shoko, Kenta, Jikai, Kiichi, Rose, Ayaka