Great Lakes PeaceJam works with young people ages 14-18 to overcome increasing levels of homophobia and racial and religious intolerance in our society through action, advocacy, and compassion.
Our society is faced with increasing levels of fear-based and often media-induced anger at the "other." This anger leads to homophobia and racial and religious intolerance. The risk of outbreaks of violence is high, but the more immediate risk is a broadening divide between groups of people who have no reason to dislike or fear each other. Our youth are especially vulnerable as they are hearing conflicting information from their families, their schools, the media, and their places of worship.
Through the PeaceJam curriculum and inspirational youth conferences led by Nobel Peace Prize winners, we provide our students with the tools to become agents of change in their own communities, thereby transforming their own lives in the process.
Our project will educate over two hundred youth from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio on how to create service projects in their communities. These youth in turn will heal their communities of fear and hatred through their action and advocacy.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
