The Peace First Prize is your chance to celebrate the powerful contributions of peacemakers. The Prize will recognize young people between the ages of 8-22 for their compassion, courage and ability to create collaborative change. Through a two-year $50,000 Peace First Fellowship we will invest in their leadership as peacemakers and share their stories with the nation. The Peace First Prize celebrates peacemakers who have taken action to address injustice in their schools, neighborhoods, and communities. Peacemaking demands compassion (understanding other people), courage (taking risks to help others) and collaborative change (engaging others) to create justice, fairness, and peace where it didn't exist before.
Five Prize winners will each receive a $50,000 Peace First Fellowship over two years to continue their peacemaking work. Through mentoring and coaching, the Peace First Fellowship is a real investment in young people’s ability to take their peacemaking to the next level of action and impact. But more than just recognizing a few individuals, we want to tell the thousands of stories about how young people are changing the world.
The Peace First Fellowship
The goals are to:
- Invest in young leaders whose work and ideas demonstrate tangible youth peacemaking;
- Learn from the work of these young peacemakers to advance the field of youth peacemaking;
- Create advocates and spokespersons for the importance of teaching peace and for changing social messages to youth about peace.
Winners will each receive a $50,000, two-year Fellowship which can be used in two ways:
- Contributing to the winner’s education and professional development
- Supporting the winner’s ongoing peacemaking work
The Fellowship includes these experiences:
- Community: Fellows will be convened 3- 5 times during their 2-year fellowship to create a peer group of peacemaking leaders. They also serve as ambassadors for Prize events in future years;
- Professional Development: Fellows will engage in a leadership development program supported by conference calls, webinars, direct coaching, and a structured curriculum;
- Mentoring: Each Fellow will work with a national business, political, or community leader who will provide advice, connections, and mentorship through quarterly conversations.
- Collective Action: Fellows will actively engage in Peace First’s mission and work. This includes public speaking, school visits, and participating in national and local peace initiatives.
Specific Eligibility Criteria
Citizens or legal residents of the United States who are between the ages of 8 and 22 years old (as of January 1, 2013) are eligible to apply for the Prize. All projects must have taken place in the United States. Family members of Peace First staff and board members are not eligible.