Anger and aggression in children and adolescents are increasingly important topics in today’s educational climate. Peacemaker embraces the notion that knowledge about peacemakers through their poignant stories can help youth trigger healthy emotional responses to situations that may otherwise have engendered negative and violent responses. The program helps young people connect knowledge to an emotional responses. It also teaches that "ordinary people can do extraordinary things."

 

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, served as President of South Africa. A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, after serving 27 years hard labor as a political prisoner under the brutal Apartheid regime he emerged triumphant, refusing to allow anger and bitterness to be his ultimate prison.

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, who turned his horrific trauma into a lifelong mission, creating critical awareness about the importance of speaking out against injustice and oppression.

 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. Also a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate he is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience

Leymah Gbowee, also a Nobel peace Prize Laureate, is the Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace,  that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003.

Peacemaker Museum advances these message, teaching that the human spirit can triumph through peace instead of vengeance. 

 

Through this project, students are provided with a broader worldview, while learning the vital lessons of the Holocaust, Apartheid, War and the Civil Rights eras.