Peace Boat US

We are proud to support the incredible work of OCEAN INNOVATION AFRICA, where partnerships are key to making lasting change for our ocean's health. Whether it is local non profits or businesses making an impact in Cape Town, or Peace Boat driving ocean literacy globally, we’re all working together to make sure the ocean economy thrives. Join their crew and help to create an ocean that benefits us all at and

Today we are at Harvard University to participate in various events around sustainability and climate action as we gear up for COP 29! This evening there is a panel discussion for students interested in learning about careers in climate and sustainability.

Peace Boat US is excited to welcome Harvard students to join us at COP this November in Baku, and we are also working on a special internship program with the Salata Institute on sustainability for students to join us at the United Nations for important conferences around ocean and climate action this coming year.

The Salata Institute is hosting programs including the Careers in Climate Action Speaker Series, featuring leading climate and sustainability practitioners from a broad range of industries and sectors. Speakers are sharing their reflections on their work and career path, providing students from across sectors with valuable insights needed to launch a climate career.

Meet Milka, one of our Peace Boat US Youth for the SDGs Scholars who participated in Climate Week NYC 2024!

Milka Rodriguez is a Dominican American of Afro-Caribbean heritage who was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York. She is passionate about environmental sustainability and community economic development, and how they affect vulnerable communities. In 2017, Milka joined the Youth for the SDG program onboard the Peace Boat, traveling from Panama, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to learn about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and peace education in Latin America.

Since then, she has conducted a study funded by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development in the Dominican Republic on watershed management and governance. Milka was selected as a youth representative to the United Nations Department of Global Communications and has served as a co-chair for the workshops subcommittee for the 68th UN Civil Society Conference. Currently, she works as a Policy Advisor at the NYC Mayor's Office of Sustainability leading a building energy efficiency program that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050, and supports the Paris Climate Agreement.

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This month Peace Boat joined the 2024 Humanitarian Disarmament Forum at Pace University in New York City. The event annually brings together humanitarian disarmament experts, civil society and youth leaders around a series of panel discussions, group work and lightening updates from various disarmament campaigns. Thank you to all of the partners who helped to organize this important conference and we will continue to raise awareness for more peaceful future through our disarmament programs this year.

Congratulations to Dr Sylvia Earle for her award last night at the New York Yacht Club with the National Maritime Historical Society ⚓️🌊

We are so proud to have Sylvia on the advisory board of Peace Boat's Ecoship and we look forward to continuing to support her work towards ocean conservation and raising awareness for Marine Protected Areas worldwide. 🐋

Thank you to our partners at Blue Planet Alliance for the invitation 📩

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Thank you so much to all of our guest speakers, United Nations partners, climate leaders, artists and performers that joined us on stage for the Peace Boat visit to New York this week! We look forward to returning in June for the UN World Oceans Day celebrations 🌊⚓️

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We had an inspiring visit to the New York Aquarium to see the upcycled plastic exhibition and exchange with their youth leaders after our beach clean up at Coney Island this week. Here are a few images of the artwork and some fun ocean facts 💙🌊⚓️

🚨PEACE BOAT DOCKED IN NYC!🛳️🗽🚨

Tomorrow, October 16th from 3-9pm Peace Boat is having our inaugural “Climate Camp: Peace Boat.” Hosted by Peace Boat and Tectonic, the program will include an exploration of the intersection of climate and other issues and how creative collaboration can solve these shared challenges. Aboard the Peace Boat all partners will unite in advancing innovative solutions to accelerate climate action and ocean conservation leading into COP 29 in Baku.

Peace Boat is also organizing a beach clean up on Oct 17 (Thursday) together with our partners at the New York Aquarium, and invite you to join us here: https://www.facebook.com/events/529703576661756/

We look forward to hosting our partners onboard tomorrow and we will return with the ship in June for our United Nations World Oceans Day celebration next!

We are planning our next voyage onboard... stay tuned for details of Peace Boat's experiences in Patagonia for January - Feb, 2025! From the Arctic to Antarctica, we are sailing for the UN Ocean Decade and can't wait to have more friends join us onboard!

We’re excited to announce Peace Boat’s upcoming visit to NYC, October 16, Wed afternoon when we will be hosting a special event onboard, the inaugural “Climate Camp: Peace Boat.” 🌊♻️🍃

Organized as a half-day summit hosted by Peace Boat US and Tectonic, the program will convene a cross-sector community of innovators, investors, United Nations delegates, civil society partners, artists, and advocates, to explore the intersection of climate and other issues and how creative collaboration can solve these shared challenges. Using the ship as our venue, we will unite partners advancing innovative solutions to accelerate climate action and responsible ocean stewardship, and build momentum towards the upcoming COP 16 in Colombia and COP 29 in Azerbaijan. 🕊️🌏

Attendance is by invitation only. Please see more information here : https://peaceboat-us.org/climate-camp-peace-boat-nyc

🛳️⚓️ .earth

On Nihon Hidankyo's Nobel Peace Prize - Peace Boat Statement

https://peaceboat.org/english/news/nihon-hidankyo-nobel-prize-peace-boat-statement

We are truly overjoyed by the news that Nihon Hidankyo (the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and extend our deep and heartfelt congratulations.

Peace Boat has worked together with the Hibakusha for many years to call for the abolition of nuclear has weapons. Our Global Voyage for a Nuclear-Free World: Peace Boat Hibakusha Project has since 2008 brought over 170 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to travel by ship, together delivering the Hibakusha’s message for nuclear weapons abolition to people around the world through testimony sessions. We have witnessed time and time again how the lives and testimonies of the Hibakusha move people around the globe as well as the young people they travel with onboard Peace Boat, giving them great courage and turning these thoughts into action.

As a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, we have also worked together with the Hibakusha to promote the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The presence of the Hibakusha has been constant at all important meetings leading to the TPNW. It is the survivors who have taught us that steady grassroots efforts, if continued without giving up, will certainly come to fruition in the form of international law, changing international norms.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee also cited Nihon Hidankyo’s contribution to maintaining the “nuclear taboo” by providing a vast number of witness accounts, issuing resolutions and public appeals, thus inspiring and educating people around the world. At a time when the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is higher than ever, as in the Middle East and Ukraine, now is the time for the world to once again sincerely listen to the voices of the Hibakusha.

No matter how difficult the situation surrounding nuclear weapons is, the Hibakusha have continued to convey the message to the world that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil, while recalling their own painful memories and struggling with severe physical conditions. It is this this message that we must firmly carry on. Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated, anywhere in the world.

However, it is not only the use of nuclear weapons that must not be repeated. Mr Tanaka Terumi, Co-Chair of Nihon Hidankyo who travelled onboard Peace Boat earlier this year, speaks often of both the reality of the atomic bombings and of how Japan was pushing forward with war. If we reflect on the aggression by Japan toward countries in the Asia-Pacific in the lead up to and during World War II, it would be unacceptable for Japan to once again expand its military and fall back into militarism. We have learned from many Hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo the importance of Japan’s Peace Constitution, especially its war-renouncing Article 9. The essential point is to hold high and act upon the principle of building peace through trust and international cooperation, without relying on military force.

In Japan, the experience of war and the atomic bombings is rapidly becoming a distant memory. At the same time, an increasing number of politicians speak of strengthening nuclear deterrence and nuclear sharing. The awarding of the Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo is an opportunity to remind ourselves that Japan is the only country to have suffered the wartime use of nuclear weapons, and that it has a heavy moral responsibility to lead the world towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Japan must sign and ratify the TPNW as soon as possible. If the Government of Japan praises the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo as “extremely meaningful,” as stated by Prime Minister Ishiba, it should also clearly state that it aims to sign and ratify the TPNW.

Peace Boat will continue to work with the Hibakusha to achieve a peaceful and sustainable world, free of nuclear weapons.

October 12, 2024
Peace Boat

BREAKING NEWS
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2024 to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

In response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, a global movement arose whose members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons. Gradually, a powerful international norm developed, stigmatising the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm has become known as “the nuclear taboo”.

The testimony of the Hibakusha – the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is unique in this larger context.

These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons. The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes nevertheless to acknowledge one encouraging fact: No nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years. The extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo. It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure.

The nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.

Next year will mark 80 years since two American atomic bombs killed an estimated 120 000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A comparable number died of burn and radiation injuries in the months and years that followed. Today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power. They can kill millions and would impact the climate catastrophically. A nuclear war could destroy our civilisation.

The fates of those who survived the infernos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were long concealed and neglected. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations. This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.

The core of Alfred Nobel’s vision was the belief that committed individuals can make a difference. In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.

Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts, issued resolutions and public appeals, and sent annual delegations to the United Nations and a variety of peace conferences to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament.

One day, the Hibakusha will no longer be among us as witnesses to history. But with a strong culture of remembrance and continued commitment, new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses. They are inspiring and educating people around the world. In this way they are helping to maintain the nuclear taboo – a precondition of a peaceful future for humanity.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to Nihon Hidankyo is securely anchored in Alfred Nobel’s will. This year’s prize joins a distinguished list of peace prizes that the Committee has previously awarded to champions of nuclear disarmament and arms control.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 fulfils Alfred Nobel’s desire to recognise efforts of the greatest benefit to humankind.

Learn more about the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize: https://www.nobelprize.org/press-release-peace-2024/

Today we are presenting about our programs for the United Nations Ocean Decade at the 54th Annual Caribbean Shipping Association in St. Maarten. We are looking forward to hosting many new partners onboard during our next Global Voyage when we visit Jamaica and Panama next summer in July of 2025!

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We had a warm welcome to St Maarten for the Caribbean Shipping Association annual meeting today. This gathering brings together all stakeholders working towards a sustainable blue economy for the region. We will be presenting our work for the UN Ocean Decade on Tuesday and look forward to meeting new partners in the Caribbean this week!

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Are you an English or Spanish language teacher with a passion for education, people, and travel?

We are seeking volunteer English and Spanish language teachers with a passion for education, people, and travel for our global voyage departing from Japan in April 2025. Peace Boat is an international NGO building a culture of peace by connecting people across borders and creating opportunities for learning, activism and cooperation. Our teachers facilitate this by empowering our participants with the skills and confidence to use language to make these connections. While this is an unpaid position, Peace Boat covers the cost of visas, port fees, room and board.

Visiting 28 Ports Around the World, including Alaska and the Nordic Countries. This voyage will offer the opportunity to experience very different and equally striking scenery around the world, including travel through two types of fjords – the verdant valleys with lush vegetation in Norway and the snow-covered fjords of Alaska with glaciers glistening under sunlight. The packed itinerary also includes beautiful cities, famous World Heritage sites, and relaxing locations in Europe, Central America, and beyond. For the full ports of call list, please click the link below:

120th Global Voyage – Departs Yokohama on April 23, 2025* and returns August 8, 2025**: https://peaceboat.org/english/voyage/120th-global-voyage

Please download the Information & Application Pack***, found here: http://peaceboat.org/english/volunteer/GET-volunteer

Application deadline - 18:00 JST December 2, 2024! All interviews will be conducted online and will take place between December 16 - 20, 2024.

*All successful applicants must be able to attend the pre-voyage orientation to be held in Japan or online roughly one week before the official departure date.
**Subject to change

#ピースボート

Today we met a true humanitarian, a hero, a photojournalist who seeks to share the stories of civilian lives that we need to hear. Thank you to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and Motaz Azaiza for making the important issues from the ground visible to the global public through photography and testimony sessions across the nation. Today we were joined by Democracy Now reporter Amy Goodman and actress Susan Sarandon on stage to share their voices for an immediate ceasefire. 🕊️🌏

Their work is helping to save lives and raise awareness about the humanitarian impact of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. As the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza, UNRWA is continuing to provide food, water, and urgent assistance to people everyday. These programs are especially critical amid the ongoing military assault on innocent civilians. ✌️☮️

It is an honor to be able to hear the first-hand accounts of the current situation in Palestine from one of the most courageous photojournalists of our time ~ Motaz Azaiza. 📸

His work, alongside our partners at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is helping to save lives and raise awareness about the humanitarian impact of this brutal conflict in the Middle East. As the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza, UNRWA is continuing to provide food, water, and urgent assistance to people everyday. These programs are especially critical amid the ongoing military assault on innocent civilians. ✌️☮️

We call for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid for all children and victims of the war. Everyone deserves to live a life of dignity with basic human rights - now lets act like it. 🕊️🍃

We’re excited to announce Peace Boat’s upcoming visit to NYC, October 16, Wed afternoon when we will be hosting a special event onboard, the inaugural “Climate Camp: Peace Boat.”

Organized as a half-day summit hosted by Peace Boat US and Tectonic, the program will convene a cross-sector community of innovators, investors, United Nations delegates, civil society partners, artists, and advocates, to explore the intersection of climate and other issues and how creative collaboration can solve these shared challenges. Using the ship as our venue, we will unite partners advancing innovative solutions to accelerate climate action and responsible ocean stewardship, and build momentum towards the upcoming COP 16 in Colombia and COP 29 in Azerbaijan.

Attendance is by invitation only. This event is made possible by a team of volunteers. If you would like to join us, please see more information here : https://peaceboat-us.org/climate-camp-peace-boat-nyc

Meet our Youth for the SDGs Scholars attending Climate Week NYC this year! Thank you for all of the great conversations, outreach and participation in our series of events for ocean and climate action this year! Let's keep the momentum to COP 29!

Visit our website to learn more about our Climate Week events which took place this past week.

Incredible performances by all of the musicians and live artists for our Climate Week grand finale! Thank you so much to everyone who joined us this week 🦋

Beautiful ocean visuals by the talented


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Join us this evening for Climate Impact Talks at the Hard Rock Hotel from 5pm-12am! The event will feature experts in the field sharing their knowledge and experiences on the pressing issue of climate change. Here’s the lineup for the musicians performing during the event!

DREEMY, MOTHER & WATER" with The Collective BAE: DRĖĖĖMY

Sounds of the Ocean, featuring Joshua Sam Miller
Soojin Dai Live
Andrei Matorin on Violin and vocals

Art exhibition by Gary Charles

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to hear these wonderful artists and be a part of the conversation!


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Today on Sept 25 – Islands Shaping the Future: Innovating for Resilience and Prosperity at the Science Summit UNGA79 in collaboration with Kinetik and Blue Planet Alliance

Agenda
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Youth Power Hour – Trailblazing young leaders from island nations chart the course for a sustainable future, Co-hosted with Blue Planet Alliance, Peace Boat US and Ashley Lashley Foundation

12:00 – 1:00 pm: Refresh & Connect on the Terrace – Enjoy light bites and drinks while networking in a relaxed setting

1:00 – 3:00 pm: Main Event – Unveiling transformative economic case studies from islands shaping tomorrow’s prosperity

The 2023 Hiroshima-ICAN Academy's Hiroshima session has come to a close!

On the final day, participants presented their key take-aways on “nuclear weapons and global risks” from the Academy. Many spoke about what they gained from visiting Hiroshima, while others emphasized the connections between nuclear weapons and other systems of power, as well as with other social movements, such as climate activism.

Participants also raised various concrete actions they can take going forward, including collaborating with other campaigns for social justice and tailoring their message to specific audiences. With these diverse perspectives and new friends from around the world, we will keep working for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Thanks to our "Youth for the SDGs" scholar and Peace Boat US representative Molly Rosaaen for joining the program.


International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)