PeaceJam is a labor of love created by Dawn Engle and her husband Ivan Suvanjieff. Ivan came up with the idea to help disaffected youth after speaking extensively with gang members in nearby Denver neighborhoods. Ivan and Dawn then conceived and created PeaceJam to help these at-risk youth resolve conflicts, build character, and achieve success through a framework of nonviolence and community service.
PeaceJam brings together at-risk youth and Nobel Peace Prize laureates in life-transforming ways during a series of seminars, community-service projects, and events. The program not only reaches out to Denvers disaffected youth, but also young people throughout the U.S. and all over the world. The program helps young people to become leaders in their own schools, neighborhoods, and communities by teaching them to think independently, to act creatively, and to become agents for positive change.
Since PeaceJam began in 1996, nearly 200,000 teenagers have participated, helping to complete over 140,000 community service projects. Additionally, 95 regional PeaceJam Youth Conferences have taken place throughout the U.S. and in eight other countries around the world. The program continues to expand. The award-winning "PeaceJam Juniors" program reaches out to elementary school students, aged seven through eleven. Dawn and Ivan plan to unveil a PeaceJam program for middle school students as well. With the help of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates on the program board, PeaceJam continually expands its activities internationally. In 2004, the couple launched PeaceJam in Kenya and in Argentina.
When Dawn and Ivan began their project, they were just colleagues working at a local college. Yet Ivan and Dawn had a great idea and a commitment to see it through. They invested their entire life savings and borrowed monies from friends and family to start PeaceJam, recruit the thirteen Nobel Laureates, and take their program to at-risk youth in Denver. Dawn and her husband, Ivan, have made a lifelong commitment to help bring about a positive difference in the lives of at-risk youth. Their labor of love, PeaceJam, accomplishes this not only in Denver, but also around the world.
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