Rudy Balles was looking for a way to heal the scars caused by gang violence in his young life when he became involved with the Arvada-based PeaceJam Foundation, a 2008 Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
Balles, 31, of Pueblo, was one of the first to sign up for the 11-year-old PeaceJam’s nonprofit program – a movement, really – putting young people to work for peace and social justice.
Through PeaceJam, Balles, who is Chicano and Southern Ute, met Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Guatemala. She changed his life.
“She was standing up for peace even though her community was being wiped out,” Balles said. “She is a Native American, like me.”
Menchú, a Mayan, organized resistance to oppression in Guatemala and brought international attention to the cause of the country’s Indian peasants.
Balles is now a full-time PeaceJam program coordinator who developed a curriculum for youths in prison.
PeaceJam founders Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff, wife and husband, said they sought the best possible role models for young people and realized Nobel Peace Prize laureates would fit the bill.
Some of those laureates have nominated Engle and Suvanjieff for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, it was announced Thursday.
Many of the laureates had humble beginnings but nevertheless made the world better.
The couple’s first audience was with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled head of state and spiritual leader.
“He really liked the idea and opened the door to the next Nobel laureates,” 50-year-old Suvanjieff said.
Since then, PeaceJam has created school curriculum and brought together more than 500,000 young people from all over the world for 150 Youth Peace Conferences, where young people work alongside Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
PeaceJam youth have completed more than 310,000 service projects, such as installation of water pipelines in Dharamshala, India, and a reforestation project in East Timor.
The 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, decided this year to honor PeaceJam by nominating its founders for the prize, citing “their work to inspire and mobilize the youth of the world.”
Five more laureates from five different countries, including Menchú and apartheid opponent and 1984 winner Desmond Tutu, followed suit in nominating PeaceJam.
For Foster Elementary School principal Leigh Hiester, whose Arvada school has a PeaceJam Leadership Squad, the program’s effects are visible every day in the classroom and on the playground.
“I hear the kids quote the Nobel laureates when they’re problem-solving with each other,” she said. “I hear them quote Desmond Tutu: ‘Fight with your words, not with your fists.”‘
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com.
