Yoshioka Tatsuya: Ships as a Container for Change

Yoshioka Tatsuya has been a leading figure in Japanese civil society for the past 40 years, and has been active internationally in the fields of education, peace and conflict resolution through the NGO Peace Boat.

Whilst a student at Waseda University, Yoshioka founded Peace Boat in 1983 to foster grassroots dialogue and people-to-people reconciliation between Japan and other Asian countries, during a period of tension and hostilities in the region.

From this vision of promoting people's diplomacy, Peace Boat has grown into a thriving NGO and social business that has organised 90 voyages for peace, and taken more than 80,000 people to over 100 ports on 7 continents for study, volunteering, cultural exchange and tourism. Yoshioka has led the organization of these voyages, as well as initiatives such empowerment programs for young people from Small Island Developing States.

Yoshioka is a founding member of the UN-initiated Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) International Steering Group, Head of its Northeast Asia Secretariat, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for leading the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War.

After the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, Yoshioka established the Peace Boat Disaster Relief Volunteer Centre, which has dispatched more than 14,000 volunteers to the stricken region and helped to rebuild devastated neighborhoods, as well as working on Disaster Risk Reduction through training young leaders worldwide.

With a strong commitment to environmental sustainability, and a passionate belief in the necessity to develop awareness of the need for non-fossil fuel, non-nuclear energy capacity, Yoshioka is currently spearheading the development of Peace Boat's Ecoship Project to create the world's most sustainable cruise ship.

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