MY SMILE IS EVERYONE'S SMILE

By Ayumi Toge
(Age 13, Japan)

"There were so many times when your smile made me feel better." Those were the words of my best friend, when we graduated from elementary school. I was really happy to hear those words. That's because I'm very fond of smiles. Don't you agree smiles are great? For instance, you may not speak the same language, but a smile will bring smiles to other people too.

I received a shock from seeing posters and photos of Afghan children. I'd heard so much about Afghanistan in the news and learnt about the country in my general studies class. There were so many times I thought, "If I lived in Afghanistan, I would never smile!" But the truth is Afghan children have smiles like the shining sun. When I didn't know very much about Afghanistan, I wondered how they could bear to smile. Now I feel ashamed for ever having thought that. Whatever was happening in Afghanistan, it was a natural thing as a human being for people living there to be smiling. I'm sure there's no one in this world who would say it was wrong to smile or who couldn't manage to put a smile on their face. That's why I have great respect for the people of Afghanistan because their faces are lit up with smiles, despite what has been happening to their country.

Robert Capa was a photo-journalist. He told stories of the horrors of the battlefield through his photos. He's said to have loved smiles too. There's a photo of a boy, taken by Capa, in our textbook. The boy has a huge smile on his face. When I saw that picture, my heart skipped with joy too and I thought, "He must be very pleased with something to be wearing such a smile." That's when I discovered the maxim, "When someone smiles, everyone else around them also starts to smile!!" And I applied that to myself and thought, "If I have a smile on my face, that will bring smiles to everyone else's face." And that's when my strong point started: "I love smiling!"

I have a great interest in refugees. That's why I try to make donations to UNICEF as often as I can. It's a bit hard giving up \100, but I think to myself as I put it into the collecting box, "This \100 coin can save a number of lives and it will bring smiles to that many people's faces." Nuclear weapons, wars between countries, civil war and so on – there are so many problems in the world that we lose count. Even at this very moment, many people are being hurt and made sad. I feel very cross with anyone who dares to take smiles off the faces of those who have done nothing to deserve such treatment. For someone like that, I want them to realize how wonderful a smile can be. I'm sure everyone has had the experience at one time or another of being cheered up someone's smile and the words, "It will be alright." You must surely have felt a great relief and the burden lift from your heart. That's how important a smile is. I want everyone to understand this.

My dream for the future is "Let the whole world smile." I dream of the day when the whole Earth is full of smiles. These days we hear lots of sad stories, like the news of Japanese being killed in Iraq, and it's certainly not easy. But for that very reason, I want to make it happen. My little campaign is this. I try to have a smile on my face all the time so that people around me all think: "Let's smile!"

I'm truly grateful to my classmate who told me, "Your smile made me feel better." She helped me realize my strength. I've been able to learn a lot from smiles and I've been able to set up my own goal. "Let's smile!" And yes, that smile is beautiful!! ...... That's my strength.