Colorado PeaceJam Founder Wins National Award

Dawn Gifford Engle, executive director and cofounder of PeaceJam Foundation in Arvada, Colo., is the recipient of a national honor recognizing her lifetime commitment to leadership and service. The Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award, presented by the National Youth Leadership Council and sponsored by the UPS Foundation, honors exemplary leaders who have inspired the service-learning field, positively impacted the lives of young people, and motivated others to take up the banner of service. The award will be given during the 24th Annual National Service-Learning Conference® on March 15, 2013 in Denver, Colo.

For the past sixteen years Dawn has built PeaceJam, an international education program, through which she has engaged more than 600,000 youth in service-learning, hosted more than 150 youth conferences with Nobel Peace Laureates, and supported youth to implement more than 1 million service-learning projects in their communities.

“She was the first one to approach many of the laureates about working with youth, and had the courage to fly around the world, often to conflict areas, to convince them,” said Betty Williams, a colleague of Dawn’s.

“Her compassion, leadership and creativity have led to the creation of an international service learning organization that has 13 Nobel Peace Laureates dedicated to service-learning programming,” said Kate Cumbo, program director at PeaceJam. “Personally, I have watched Dawn initiate new bold projects to address the needs of practitioners, youth, and the service-learning field in general.”

Dawn and the PeaceJam Foundation have been nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize for its award-winning and innovative service-learning curriculum. In 2006, Dawn worked alongside Nobel Peace Laureates to launch the Global Call to Action Campaign, which defined ten global issues and challenged youth to achieve one billion service projects to help solve these issues.

NYLC created the award in 1989 in honor of Alec Dickson who worked with young people in his native England and abroad and founded Overseas Voluntary Service and Community Service Volunteers which have — in turn — inspired service programs worldwide.