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| Departure of the 37th World Cruise! |
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| The moment the boat pulls away, a certain energy takes over the people on both sides as they wave that final wave. |
Under beautiful skies and flying ticker tape, Peace
Boat was sent off on its 37th World Cruise by a good crowd of family,
friends and supporters on May 2nd, 2002. We left Harumi Port, Tokyo,
Japan, heading for Kobe, Japan, where we stopped for a few hours to
pick up a second group of participants before setting off on this
equatorial voyage which will take us to, among many places, Northern
Europe for the first time in Peace Boat's history. While we set off
with high hopes and big plans, we don't need a specialist to tell
us that the world is in quite a mess at the moment, keeping groups
like Peace Boat in business and busy as ever. Yet we are not after
world peace, as many assume of those in the peace movement, but rather
to do our bit to make the world a nicer place - to use a medical analogy,
one may not achieve perfect health, but taking vitamins and exercising
will help one feel that much better. And through grassroots exchange,
we'll experience first-hand all the great people, culture, food, music
and dance that still exist in spite of poverty and conflict and which
make the pursuit of peace a most worthwhile of occupations.
Onboard our 'floating peace village' as it is sometimes called we
have a number of programs and participants from around the world looking
at specific issues and focusing our work on a few different projects.
Some of our main focuses are...
International Student (IS) program - Our IS program this time brings
six students from Northern Ireland, Palestine, Israel, Bosnia and
Yugoslavia (Serbia) together along with specialists in conflict resolution,
reconciliation and peace education to work intensively on building
these students' skills in dealing with conflict and introduce the
subjects and issues mentioned above to Peace Boat participants. They
will be with us until Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Global University (GU) program - The GU program is a chance for participants
to study intensively some of the issues Peace Boat will be dealing
with throughout the cruise as an addition to the lectures and projects
available to all onboard. There will be five units covering 1. Peace
and Human Rights 2. Conflict in Northern Ireland 3. Conflict in the
Former Yugoslavia 4. Globalization and Human Rights 5. Applying International
Law to Current Conflicts.
In Northern Europe - There will be a large NGO forum onboard Peace
Boat in London to introduce Peace Boat to NGO's there and develop
networks and cooperation. We will be hosting a Political Theater Group
from London to Belfast, as well as holding an anti-landmine campaign
in the Northern European cities we will visit.
Some of the major themes that we will be focusing on are to better
understand Islam, the changing nature of conflict and terrorism in
the world, globalization and human rights, and how the world after
Sept. 11th.
For the next three months, reports will be coming from the ship covering
the countries we visit, reports on each unit of the major programs
onboard, a weekly lectures and life onboard report and special updates
covering unplanned projects, press releases and peace actions. As
for now, staff and participants are just working on settling in and
getting to know the members of this floating community who will act
as a giant extended family until our return on August 14th, and looking
forward to our first stop in Shanghai, China! |
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| Peace Boat's
37th Voyage |
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PEACE BOAT is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. |
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