10 Nobel Prize winners gather for PeaceJam
By Jennifer Brown
Denver Post Staff Writer
The largest gathering of Nobel Peace Prize winners ever in the United States is in Denver this weekend to inspire 3,000 teenagers to build peace in their communities.
PeaceJam, a three-day event at the University of Denver, combines small groups of students with laureates to brainstorm about neighborhood service projects.
Global Call to Action: After a year's worth of conversations and meetings around the world, the Nobel laureates will announce today the 12 core problems standing in the way of world peace.
Their plan focuses on the root causes of conflict: degradation of the environment, lack of women's rights and a widening divide between those who have resources and those who don't.
To create the global call to action, PeaceJam interviewed the Nobel laureates, transcribed the conversations and shared them with the rest of the peace-prize winners. Then the foundation gathered them in small groups in Italy, India and Bali.
What is PeaceJam? It's a year-long leadership-training program for teenagers to create "pockets of peace" in their communities.
Before the annual conference, PeaceJam clubs study Nobel laureates, violence and intolerance with community leaders and high school mentors.
PeaceJam projects have included taking back a neighborhood park, starting a gay-straight alliance at school or raising money to build a classroom in an African village.
How PeaceJam began: In June 1994, dubbed Denver's "summer of violence" because of gang shootings, Ivan Suvanjieff came across a group of dropouts packing guns in his neighborhood.
They didn't care about the president of the United States, but they knew who Archbishop Desmond Tutu was. Suvanjieff decided then that he wanted to connect youths with Nobel Peace Prize winners.
His colleague, Dawn Engle, knew the Dalai Lama because she had lobbied for Tibet in Congress.
Engle and Suvanjieff pitched their idea to the Dalai Lama, who suggested they involve other Nobel laureates.
Now 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners are members of the PeaceJam Foundation.
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