"I have been working with Peace Boat for 14 years" says Akira Kawasaki, Director of Peace Boat's Global University, a unique educational programme that takes place at sea during Peace Boat's Global Voyages. Through two weeks of onboard lectures and field programmes in ports, Peace Boat gives young students from around the world the opportunity to think deeply about the responsibility they bear as global citizens and how they can build solutions to various pressing global problems.
Promoting Peace, Disarmament and Sustainability: t...
Peace Boats 92nd Global Voyage departed from Yokohama with the atmosphere on deck warm and optimistic. Though the route for the current voyage is well planned, the true map of this journey will be written by the participants, staff and guest educators who will be on board for 104 days as they travel the world. The theme of the 92nd voyage is 'peace beyond borders', with an emphasis on building a nuclear free world.
El Sistema - Our hearts will beat to the rhythm of...
Our hearts will beat to the rhythm of music. This is the message the orchestra of El Sistema brought onboard the 91st Voyage. One of the largest social inclusion projects in the world, El Sistema was founded 41 years ago by Maestro José Antonio Abreu. His idea was that music could somehow change the lives of Venezuelan children and youth and instill good social and moral values. Some of these young musicians now travel the world, playing in sold-out theatres.
Jasna Bastic - refugee to peace activist
"This is the stadium in Sarajevo where we had the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games in 1984. The entire world was watching and we were so proud!" explains Jasna Bastic during her presentation on Peace Boat-"Just some years later, the same stadium became a huge graveyard." Jasna Bastic was working as a journalist when the war exploded in Bosnia and Herzegovina (former Yugoslavia).
Remembering Chernobyl
1.45 am, 26 April 1986: Thirty years ago the world witnessed the biggest nuclear disaster in history. The reactor number 4 of the Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, an industrial town in the former Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded because of a faulty test, releasing a cloud of radioactive substances. More than 3.5 million people have been officially registered as having been affected by the radioactive contamination. Wind spread the radioactive substances to Europe, western USSR and even as far as Japan.
Sailing for a nuclear free world: The Pacific Peac...
Tahiti, the Marshall Islands and Japan are not just connected by the vast Pacific Ocean; they are also connected by devastating nuclear tragedies. Japan remains the only country whose cities have suffered nuclear bomb attacks, in 1945. Five years ago, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster demonstrated the potential destructive power of even the "peaceful" use of nuclear energy.
Creating a new society: Peace Boat's 91st Global V...
As Peace Boat's chartered vessel Ocean Dream begins to rumble beneath the feet of the participants onboard, people wave at their family and friends, screaming "Ittekimasu!" (Good bye, see you!). The 1000 participants on board Peace Boat 91st Global Voyage will return to Yokhama in July enriched by 106 memorable days navigating the planet.
Pacific Peace Forum participants visit Fukushima a...
After three intense weeks onboard the 90th Peace Boat Global Voyage, the Pacific Peace Forum participants arrived in Japan on March 30. Once ashore, Michel Arakino from French Polynesia, Brooke Takala Abraham and Desmond Doulatram from the Marshall Islands, and Sato Kenta from Iitate Village in Fukushima, visited the Daigo Fukuryumaru Exhibition Hall in Tokyo and various locations in Fukushima Prefecture.
Peace Boat visits the Marshall Islands for the fir...
For the first time in its history, on March 22, Peace Boat docked in the port of Majuro, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands as part of its 90th Global Voyage. With a population just over 60.000, this republic of 29 atolls and five islands covers more than 1.6 million square kilometres of the central Pacific, and is made up of two island chains known as the Ralik (sunrise) Chain and the Ratak (sunset) Chain.
Rapa Nui through the eyes of Toki: Shaping a bette...
Peace Boat has a special relationship with Rapa Nui, the remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and 2,200 km from the closest inhabited place. Peace Boat first visited the island in 1996 and has since then returned 26 times.
The work of Azafady: improving education condition...
Sometimes described as the Eighth Continent, Madagascar is one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet. The fourth largest island on Earth is also one of the poorest places in the world. Nine out of 10 people live on less than $2 per day, according to the 2012-13 Millennium Development Goal survey.
Nuchi du takara (life is precious): Peaceful Resis...
"Nuchi du takara" (life is precious). These words, spoken in 1879 by the king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Sho Tai are central to the traditions of the peace movement in Okinawa. For hundreds of years, the group of pacific islands south of Japan was an independent kingdom, Ryukyu, a trading nation between Asian countries and a peaceful place.