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On January 25, 2017, a special guest came onboard Peace Boat while it was docked in the port of Montevideo, Uruguay. Known to many as "the world's most humble president" - due to his simple lifestyle and his donation of 90 per cent of his presidential salary to charity - Jose "Pepe" Mujica, the former President of Uruguay, made a special visit to the Ocean Dream to deliver a speech to Peace Boat participants.

As Peace Boat's 94th Voyage for Peace and Sustainability was docked in the city of La Guaira in Venezuela, an event was held onboard with the theme to realise a nuclear-free world. This formed part of the Global Voyage for a Nuclear Free World: Peace Boat Hibakusha Project taking place on the voyage where atomic bomb survivors are travelling around the world to give their testimonies of the bombings and appeal for nuclear weapons to be abolished.

Brazil boasts a rich social fabric - it is home to indigenous peoples, people of Portuguese descent, and those of African descent, among others - but poverty and inequality are perennial problems. While the legal minimum wage in Brazil is presently 937 reals per month, this is approximately four times less than the amount required for a decent standard of living, according to a recent survey produced by a Brazilian workers' union. While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, participants had the opportunity to learn in-depth about the history, culture and socioeconomic issues of Brazil - Peace Boat's first port of call on the Latin American continent.

In early January 2017, Peace Boat sailed around the south-eastern coast of Africa - calling in Madagascar, Mozambique, and South Africa - and afforded participants the opportunity to deepen their understanding of some of the pressing social and environmental challenges which presently face the continent. During this leg of the 93rd Global Voyage, two guest educators came onboard to focus the minds of participants on one issue which blighted the lives of millions of South Africans for decades: apartheid.

On December 9, 2016, a bright, crisp winter day, Peace Boat set sail from Yokohama on its 93rd Global Voyage. As the departure ceremony unfolded on the ship's top decks, cries of joy from participants lingered in the air, while technicoloured ribbons cascaded down to the port where hundreds of people gathered to send off their loved ones on this exciting adventure of a lifetime.

The 9th "Global Voyage for a Nuclear-Free World: Peace Boat Hibakusha Project" which took place onboard Peace Boat's 92nd Global Voyage returned to Yokohama after holding events to share the testimonies of nuclear bomb survivors in 13 countries and 17 cities. Five Hibakusha, two from Hiroshima and three from Nagasaki, took part in the project with the theme "Sharing the Testimonies and Message of the Survivors, Building the Momentum to Ban Nuclear Weapons". They were joined by one second generation Hibakusha and one "legacy messenger".

Peace Boat returned to New York for the first time in several years on October 20, 2016. To celebrate the visit of the 92nd Global Voyage, a large-scale event took place onboard the ship with the participation of hundreds of guests. The "Floating Festival for Sustainability" was organized with the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Close to 700 people gathered on the ship to celebrate partnership between the UN, the private sector and civil society to achieve these goals, the logo of which is painted on the ship's hull.

"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.

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.

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.

"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).

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.