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. Growing recognition of the value of this is evident in the Hague Appeal for Peace Global Campaign for Peace Education and the 1994 launch of UNESCO's Educating for a Sustainable Future. Further, the United Nations declared the Year 2000 as the International Year for a Culture of Peace and 2001-2010 is being designated as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.

Since its foundation in 1983, Peace Boat has been active in the field of education for peace and sustainability through the organization of educational voyages, based on lectures, workshops and study-exchange programmes both onboard the ship and in ports of call. Our Global University and International Student (IS) programmes provide innovative approaches to peace and sustainability-related studies through intensive learning onboard and direct exposure to issues in various countries. Global University is an intensive peace and sustainability studies programme for participants onboard, combining advanced study of selected topics onboard the ship with exposure programmes in various countries. Our goal during each voyage is to provide participants with the insight and skills necessary to play an active role in education, activism and peace-building activities at the grass-roots level in Japan and internationally. The programme is guided by special guest educators and specialists from Japan and many countries around the world. Among the wide-ranging topics of study are the conflicts in Israel/Palestine, the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland; globalization; media literacy; HIV/AIDS with a focus on Africa; and climate change as it affects South Pacific Island states. Download the Global University brochure - Click here Peace Boat aims to increase access to peace education and conflict resolution training to young people from regions in military or political conflict through the International Student (IS) programme. We invite a select number of young people from opposing sides of conflicts to participate in an advanced conflict analysis and peaceful conflict resolution training programme, on a scholarship basis. As well as peace training, the international students help other participants onboard understand their lives and challenges, thus contributing greatly to the general participants' overall understanding of the nature of conflict.

The aim of the programme is for students to learn about peaceful conflict resolution and develop the knowledge, skills, experience and motivation that will equip them with the means to work for peace when they return to their homes.

To date, students have come from Palestine, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Northern Ireland, Colombia, the United States, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Offering educational opportunities to all participants onboard our peace voyages is a key foundation of Peace Boat's activities. Every day on the ship, there are numerous lectures and workshops taking place on a wide variety of contemporary global issues including globalization, conflict, human rights and the environment. Introductory presentations about the countries we visit are also given. This in turn, helps participants better understand how local communities and individuals are affected by, and find creative solutions to, problems that exist around the world. In port, Peace Boat encourages participants to experience first-hand the daily lives of local people and what they are doing to improve their lives. To this foundation we add activism and co-operation with our counterpart organizations, thus creating the Peace Boat education-through-action experience. Peace Boat, through its GET Programme, organizes onboard English and Spanish language programmes that allow participants to communicate more effectively with the people they meet in port. These programmes focus on oral communication and combine onboard classroom study and a range of language-based activities, with special exchange programmes and home-stays in selected ports of call. Peace Boat views the English and Spanish languages as global property that can be used as tools for international and intercultural exchange. We believe in introducing students to the many varieties of both languages found throughout the world, from the English spoken in Singapore or New Zealand to the Spanish spoken in El Salvador or Argentina. As an organization founded with the objective of exposing its participants to the realities of history, Peace Boat continues to undertake a wide variety of activities to advocate for peace education in Japan, and share our collective experiences around the world with as many people as possible. Educational activities include presentations from study tours in Japan and abroad, discussing peace issues and individual experiences with students from elementary schools to universities, and organizing forums and panel discussions, all of which are open to the public.