This September your wishes can send a beacon of light and hope across Yokohama. A special website has been set up by the city of Yokohama in order to raise the awareness of suicide and suicide prevention measures.
The unique website collects the wishes of citizens and turns them into light at the Yokohama Marine Tower. The more wishes collected, the more the tower will light up.
The aim of the event is to help realise and create a society where no one feels driven to suicide.

Take part in the light up by writing down your hopes, dreams and wishes on the website’s form. The event coincides with Japan’s ‘Suicide Prevention Week’ and takes place from Monday 14th September to Sunday 20th September 2020.

The website is a little tricky to navigate, so follow these instructions to get to the wishing form (you can also follow the screenshots included at the bottom of this article for further guidance):

• Go to the Tower of Wishes website.
• Click on the bottom right hand corner button with the following kanji: 次へ (next)
• To get to the form click the animated white circle at the top of the page. (If you scroll down the page, the white circle will move to the bottom right hand corner)
• The form allows you to write a wish of up to 35 characters. Although the website is in Japanese, it does allow wishes to be submitted in all languages. Underneath your wish is a box to fill out a nickname, and some drop down menus for sharing your age, gender, and to state your location (there are options to fill in if you’d rather not leave this information)

If you ignore the animated white circle and scroll down the page, you will find a rolling carousel of wishes submitted by other partakers. Even if you don’t want to share your own, it is extremely uplifting to see what others wish and dream for.
Towards the bottom of the page, you can check out a live view of Yokohama Marine Tower as it fills up with the wishes of citizens across the country (available only between 17:55pm and 24:05pm during the event).