Peace Boat @en | Christina Felschen

Peace Boat @en | Christina Felschen

The wings of music

written for the Peace Boat website on January 14th, 2013 >>

In 1976, Kolwane Mantu started to teach four children in his mother’s kitchen; today he has 148 students who are regularly invited to play in big concert halls. How an orchestra spreads hope in a South African township.

Second birth

Estela de Carlotto, grande dame of the Argentinean civil rights movement, has finally found her stolen grandson Guido.. 37 years after his parents were murdered and he was made to live with a couple close to the military regime. What a day for the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo! However, there are still 400 unidentified grandchildren out there… Do they have the slightest idea? And if they do, what keeps them from coming out?

The Caravan of Change

published by Peace Boat (>> and >>, Youtube >>), in Spanish >> and in the German magazine “Südlink” 2/2013 >>

What to do if your own city has just gone through a civil war and will not wake up? If everybody locks themselves into their homes and their neighbours out? In the desert town of Villa El Salvador, a 16-year-old went out into the empty streets with a clown nose. Many followed her – until today.

“We are treated like slaves in our own country”

written for the Peace Boat website on January 14th, 2013 >>

Two decades after Nelson Mandela’s release out od prison, the legacy of apartheid prevails in Manenberg, Cape Town’s largest township.

Riots in Gandhi’s neighbourhood

written for the Peace Boat website, January 11, 2013 >>

The Bhambayi township has come a long way after apartheid: In 1992 violent riots broke out between supporters of different political parties – next door to a model settlement created by the icon of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi. Today Gandhi’s great-granddaughter and a traditional healer help orphans to overcome the trauma

Diplomacy, the art of balance

written for the Peace Boat website, Dec 30, 2012 >>

As a student Rafendi Djamin was imprisoned for his human rights activism under the Indonesian military regime – today he was nominated president of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. But he witnesses how governments and local elites have found other ways to bypass human rights: Often they simply do not implement the laws on the ground.

A thousand ways to surround the world

written for the Peace Boat website on Dec 25th, 2012 >>

Cruises can be really boring, many people warned me before I got on board the Ocean Dream to surround the world with hundreds of Japanese people. Well, this one wasn’t – thanks to the people on board. Let me present just 5 out of more than a thousand: the interpreter, the captain’s right hand, the activist, the volunteer and the child.

With the support of a sea goddess

written for Peace Boat’s website, Dec 20th, 2012 >>

In a Taiwanese village regularly shuttered by earthquakes a second “Fukushima” type powerplant is currently being constructed. Local fisherfolks have successfully delayed its completion for two decades – with the help of whistleblowing workers and the spiritual support of a sea goddess, as they say.

Can Sunny Bear tame the Asian Dragon?

 written for Peace Boat’s website, December 19th, 2012 >>

The Fukushima nuclear meltdown came like a wakeup call to the Taiwanese people: Don’t they live on the same seismic fault line? And don’t they have several equally exposed power plants on the shoreline, close to cities? Activist Wang Shun-Wei and her Taipeh based NGO help fishermen and office workers to voice their concerns.

Realizing how big the world is

written for the Peace Boat website, Dec 16th, 2012 >>

One year ago, we departed on a voyage that I will never forget. While Yokohama became smaller and smaller in a rain of ribbons, music and goodbyes, I felt that these 102 days would mark a turning point in my life – a presentiment which was true, but in a different way than I had expected. This voyage gave me the optimism and ‘genkiness’ that I needed later on in 2013 – thanks to all the incredible people onboard and in ports! Hope to see you again!