Not often do LMU students get the opportunity to listen to six Nobel Peace Prize winners and the Dalai Lama, but The Center for Service and Action's PeaceJam: "Global Call for Action" gives students the chance to do so.
The event, which is taking place September 11-13 will bring together Nobel Prize Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Betty Williams and Rigoberta Mench Tum to meet and speak with 1,500 high school students from around the world as well 1,000 students from schools in the greater Los Angeles area.
The weekend will also include a satellite address from the Dalai Lama in Gersten Pavilion.
CSA is looking for 200 LMU students to serve as a youth mentors at the event. At press time, they had less than 100 applications.
In September, 2006, 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners met in Denver, Colo. to discuss the problems the youth of the world will have to face as they grow, and what could be done to help them overcome these challenges. Each settled on a single global dilemma such as racism and hate, environmental degradation, access to clean water and extreme poverty.
Believing in the possibility for change, they decided they would go straight to the youth, telling their stories, hoping to serve as role models for peaceful action. They called their project PeaceJam and their chief goal was to initiate one billion acts of service around the world.
Since this historic congregation, PeaceJam has travelled to ten countries involving 600,000 youth.
Joanne Majewski, an administrator in CSA who is helping coordinate PeaceJam spoke of how LMU was chosen to host the event.
"Peace Jam 2008 was intended to take place in Costa Rica but for all sorts of reasons [the organizers] were forced to back out," she said. "When Jody Williams, one of the six Nobel Laureates, came last fall she was impressed with LMU's Camp Darfur and the responsiveness of our student body."
Williams shared her experience with PeaceJam's board of directors who in turn paid a visit and were equally impressed. "The PeaceJam conference is expecting 3,000 participants, and students from LMU are invited to come but would have to pay the $345 fee," Majewski said. "This is why these mentor positions are really important."
Beth Shaw, a junior political science major, is heading the student mentor program, and will guide LMU students through the training sessions, one before the end of this semester and the other before the event.
"It's an amazing way for us to provide leadership to the younger teens, showing them LMU and show our school pride, but also to be able to learn from youth who are actively involved trying to create peace in their own community," said Shaw.
Shaw also mentioned the unique opportunity of listening to six winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Putting the whole mentoring aspect aside, most people would love to attend this because they get to listen to six Nobel Peace Prize winners, something that may never happen again their lives," Shaw said.
Applications, which ask only for basic information and a brief explanation for interest, are available online through the school website and can be turned into the CSA offices in Malone 360.
