Last Updated: 2014.07.14
UNIQLO Builds Children's Playground For Earthquake-Hit Japan Community In partnership with its Global Brand Ambassador professional tennis player Novak Djokovic
UNIQLO CO., LTD.
to Japanese page
UNIQLO today announces that it is building a playground to be known as the UNIQLO DREAM WALL for the local community in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which was hard-hit - and continues to recover from - Japan's March 2011 earthquake.
To source ideas for a custom playground designed to meet the community's specific needs, UNIQLO will host two workshops for local elementary and middle school students, and parents with smaller children, on August 24 and September 7, 2014. They will be facilitated by community designer Ryo Yamazaki, who has a strong record in engaging communities in town planning, while Professor Masayoshi Takeuchi of the Tohoku University of Art and Design, and head of architectural firm MIKAN, will realize the ideas. Final plans will be announced in November 2014 and construction kicked off in January 2015, with the project managed in partnership with nonprofit organization JEN. UNIQLO DREAM WALL is scheduled to launch in March 2015, at Kamikama Fureai Square.
UNIQLO DREAM WALL is the sixth of eight planned initiatives under UNIQLO's Clothes for Smiles project, launched with its Global Brand Ambassador Novak Djokovic in October 2012. Clothes for Smiles solicited the public for ideas to help children build a better, brighter future, and selected the eight projects from among them. UNIQLO DREAM WALL was proposed by Yosuke Kawada, a tennis coach in Chiba Prefecture.
Clothes for Smiles is based on a $10 million (US) fund raised from sales over Fall/Winter 2012 of UNIQLO HEATTECH and Ultra-Light Down. $5 million (US) has been allocated to initiatives to improve education for children through a global alliance with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), while the remaining $5 million (US) goes towards the eight projects, which were selected from among 739 entries from 46 countries.
