Nobel Peace laureate, Jody Williams will be the special guest to grace this year’s PeaceJam Ghana youth leadership conference slated for June 29 to July 1 at the University of Ghana.

The conference hosted by the West Africa Centre for Peace Foundation, the official chapter of PeaceJam in Ghana.

PeaceJam is an international education programme built around peace prize laureates who work with the youth with the aim of imparting their skills, knowledge and wisdom to the youth.

The PeaceJam programme is designed to inculcate in the youth the commitment to justice and peace, social responsibility, academic excellence and other values that seek to inspire young people and make them transformational leaders for their societies.

During the two-day conference, the youth (PeaceJammers), drawn from member Junior and Senior High schools across the country with the help of some adult mentors, will study the life and work of Jody Williams and other Noble Peace laureates.

Similarly, the youth will learn about issues such as violence and intolerance facing young people today, and develop and implement service projects designed to address problems in their communities.

Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman – and third American woman – in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize. Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a life-long advocate of freedom, self-determination and human and civil rights.



Since January of 2006, Jody Williams has worked toward those ends through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which she chairs. Along with Sister Noble Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, she took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

They were joined at that time by sister Nobel Laureates Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala) and Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire (Northern Ireland). The Initiative uses the prestige of the Noble Peace Prize and the influence and access of the women Nobel Laureates themselves to support and amplify the efforts of women around the world working for sustainable peace with justice and equality.

Williams continues to be recognised for her contributions to human rights and global security. She is the recipient of fifteen honorary degrees, among other recognitions.

In 2004, Williams was named by Forbes Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world in the publication of its first such annual list.