Sunao Ishii, age 11, lives in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Her nickname is Su-chan.

Her hobby is handcrafting stuffed animals she designs and creates herself. Each stuffed animal has a story Su-chan has imagined. She sews fabric and felt to match that story, adds a face, and breathes life into the stuffed animal.

For Su-chan, it's very important that the stuffed animals can be hugged.　Holding them gives her courage.

In fact, Su-chan has lived with a serious abdominal illness since birth and has undergone seven surgeries so far. When she felt down because of her illness, her stuffed animals supported her.

Wanting others to experience the wonder of stuffed animals too,　Su-chan decided to challenge herself by holding a stuffed animal workshop at the hospital.Beforehand, she practiced making the stuffed animals  for the workshop with her friend Mao-chan.

On the day of the hospital workshop, nervousness initially prevented Su-chan from teaching the children participating  how to make stuffed animals. But in the end, she found her courage and taught the children how to make stuffed animals.　Then, one of the participant hugged the stuffed animals made by himself and smiled.