The wooden school building of the former Hosomi Elementary School and Nakade branch school in Nakade, Miwa-cho, Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto Prefecture, which was closed in 2002, will be used for the construction of a pavilion for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, and the school building will be relocated. A departure ceremony was held on October 14, 2023. Approximately 25 people from the city and local communities attended, including Naomi Kawase, producer and film director of the pavilion's themed business center ''Testimonies of Life,'' and celebrated a farewell to the school building and a new departure.
Kazuo Ohashi, mayor of Fukuchiyama City, which is hosting the ceremony, said, ''The Nakade branch school that was with the children will be reborn as a pavilion for the Expo, which will be visited by many people.'' Ms. Kawase said in his greeting, ''The school building holds precious memories, and the pavilion will become a theater where dialogue can take place.I want to relocate the memories of the local community and make them flourish.''
While the official mascot of the Expo, Myaku Myaku, looked on, three second-year students from the Nakade area who attended Sanwa Elementary School read out their diplomas to the school building, and Kawase received a thank you note with ginkgo leaves attached. It was given to me. Local residents wrote farewell messages on the ceremony panels.
The themed business center ''Witness of Life'' will be constructed using the Nakade Branch School and three buildings of the former Oritate Junior High School in Totsukawa Village, Nara Prefecture.
