Paper Airplane Relay Connecting People with Disabilities and Welfare Facilities Across Japan Certified as Guinness World Record™

JIC-Group, an insurance agency specializing in the disability welfare industry operating nationwide in Japan, is pleased to announce that it has been officially certified by Guinness World Records™ for the "Largest online video chain of people catching and throwing paper aircraft," successfully linking 401 participants. In this project, we collaborated with users, students, staff, and organizations from disability welfare facilities and special needs schools across Japan to film the act of catching a flying paper airplane and throwing it to the next participant. By stitching together footage collected from across the country, we created a video where disability welfare sites throughout Japan are connected in a single relay. This challenge was not merely about setting a world record. What we wanted to convey was the "existence" of the users, students, and staff who spend their days at disability welfare facilities and special needs schools across the country, as well as the welfare sites themselves. Disability welfare sites can sometimes become invisible in society. However, in reality, there is daily life, human relationships, laughter, worries, and people who are seriously committed to something. The completed video captures the atmosphere of each site, the expressions of each participant, their ingenuity, and their seriousness. What is shown is not "someone special." It is the image of people who live, work, and interact with their peers in disability welfare sites across the country every day. Through this challenge, we wanted to send a message to society that "there are such people and such places all over the country." Therefore, we named the record holder "JIC-Group and its partners at facilities for people with disabilities." Because the paper airplane is such a simple tool, many people participated regardless of age, region, or disability characteristics. At one facility, users and staff worked together to devise filming methods, and at one school, students connected paper airplanes while trying many times. The video retains both nervous expressions and smiles at the moment of success. And every time the paper airplane passed to the next region or facility, the disability welfare sites across the country were gradually connected into one. We feel that the completed video is not just a Guinness World Record™ challenge video, but a "relay of existence" by disability welfare sites across the country.