the Informer

The University’s own chapter of the PeaceJam Foundation, which focuses on mentoring high school students and coordinating workshops and events on campus that focus on different ways to improve the community, will soon be on the Hartford campus.

Jordan Shoesmith, a mentor within the new PeaceJam Chapter here on campus explained how the club began. “The North Eastern part of PeaceJam, called Next Generation Leaders is branching out, and definitely has an influence on Connecticut, and it’s what really had the effect on starting a chapter here on campus.”

Students who decide to be mentors will be working with high school students from eighth-grade to 12th-grade from various parts of the North East. “PeaceJam has students from New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and states from the North East working together, so anyone a part of our chapter on campus can look forward to working with students from the tri-state area,” said Shoesmith.

The PeaceJam Foundation was founded in Denver, Colo., has Nobel Prize Laureates mentor and works with children once a year. Every year there is a new Laureate that is selected to participate in the program. This past month in March, 2003 Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi visited the Watkinson School here on campus, where she spoke about different ways to approach peace.

“The Foundation has Laureates visit various chapters, where they hold conferences yearly, and one just occurred this past month. Each Laureate has their own Global Called Actions [GCAs] where they focus on one primary aspect of change, or issue going on in the world, so every chapter focuses on its own GCA and how to apply it to their campus or community,” says Shoesmith.

The campus chapter will have its own GCA it will focus on and applying them to the campus and local community through servicew projects that will be done with members and mentors of the chapter on campus. There will also be workshops set up around the schedule based for the conference of the Laureate visiting campus.
“Every chapter does its own global call action project, for example the chapter in Maine made their own gardens on campus, so there are a variety of things we could do for our own chapter,” states Shoesmith.

The chapter here on campus has just recently finished working on its constitution which it will be presenting to the SGA. The Chapter doesn’t have any dates planned yet, as Shoesmith explains that the schedule is currently tentative.

“I think the program will get really big once people get interested, as the chapter is more than just mentoring students. People who get involved can work on service projects and attend workshops, and even look forward to seeing Laureates when they come to campus,” Shoesmith says.