Peace Boat - Sailing for a Good Cause

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Peace Boat is a Japan-based international non-governmental and non-profit organization that works to promote peace, human rights, equal and sustainable development and respect for the environment..



Peace Boat creates awareness and action based on effecting positive social and political change in the world. This is pursued through the organization of global educational programmes, responsible travel, cooperative projects and advocacy activities. These activities are carried out on a partnership basis with other civil society organizations and communities in Japan, Northeast Asia, and around the world.


Peace Boat carries out its main activities through a chartered passenger ship that travels the world on peace voyages. Three Global Voyages and one short Asian regional voyage are usually organized each year. The three-month Global Voyages are each joined by around 800 participants and visit between 15-20 countries.


The ship, as a neutral space beyond borders, becomes a floating peace village, encouraging a sense of community and enabling direct dialogue between those onboard and in the ports that we visit. Their programmes, both onboard and in port, is explore the main aspects of Peace Boat activity – peace, human rights, sustainability and respect for the environment, and aim to develop travel as a tool for peace and sustainability.


Peace Boat visits an average of 15 ports on each global voyage. During our visits, typically one to three days in length. They have developed various ways through which our overall objective of promoting peace and sustainability can find a concrete expression, locally and globally. The port is the place for them to build alliances and promote solidarity with different actors and at different levels of each society.


In order to achieve a sustainable world with a global culture whose values reflect a genuine desire for peace and a rejection of violence, Peace Boat believes that it is of paramount importance to make what we call education for peace and sustainability an integral part of our collective learning. In practice, this means making peace education for a sustainable world more accessible to a wider audience, and acknowledging its teaching as a legitimate discipline in the formal educational system...