News Stories

A speaker addresses an audience from a lectern.
Masako Toki welcomed students and teachers to the most recent Critical Issues Forum in Monterey in summer 2023. (Credit: Mark Basse )

“Nothing is more powerful and effective than hibakusha testimonials in helping others to understand the horrific reality of the use of nuclear weapons,” writes Masako Toki in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Toki, who is senior education project manager and research associate for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, notes an ever-growing urgency to share the stories of these atomic bomb survivors, whose average age now tops 85 and whose numbers are dwindling each year.

“We have to make sure that younger generations understand the horrors of nuclear weapons use,” Toki writes. “This is why it is important to promote disarmament and nonproliferation education for younger generations, including undergraduates and high school students. We have to plant seeds, nurture those students, and get them to reach the next step.”

Toki coordinates the Critical Issues Forum (CIF) to promote disarmament and nonproliferation education to high school students and teachers in the US, Japan, Russia and other countries, and the Summer Undergraduate Nonproliferation Fellowship Program.

Read her full article.