Eric Dawson

1996

Eric Dawson

Peace Games

http://www.peacegames.org/

Somerville, Massachusetts, United States

Education & Youth Leadership, Non-Violence

The Bold Idea:

Tragically, in America, our children learn violent behavior from a young age. They are victims of violence. Every day in America, 14 children are killed with a handgun. They are perpetrators of violence. In 1998, the Bureau of Justice estimated that every day 315 children are arrested for committing a violent crime. Finally children witness violence in their homes and in various media. Before they enter school, children witness over 100,000 acts of violence on television.

Peace Games empowers students to create their own safe classrooms and communities by forming partnerships with elementary schools, families, and volunteers. Partner school are assigned a Site Director, who after training at the Peace Games Institute, oversees a group of Americorp members and volunteers who teach Peace Game lessons and workshops.

Peace Games teaches young people tools to find creative solutions to the complex problems facing them through cooperation, communication, conflict resolution, and community. They learn the value of friends and teamwork, how to communicate in appropriate ways, how to resolve disagreements through talking rather than fighting, and how to utilize their community as a team that can change injustices around them. Peace Games has worked with over 20,000 children and 1,000 volunteers.

Biography:

Eric Dawson is the co-founder and Executive Director of Peace Games. He has authored six curricula and teaching guides, dozens of evaluation reports, and holds a M.Ed. in Risk and Prevention from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to Peace Games, Mr. Dawson served as Education Director for a summer program in Roxbury, MA, and spent three years doing disability awareness work in Columbus, Ohio. A Youth Service America and echoing green fellow, Mr. Dawson currently lives in Boston.