Danielle Gram spent her childhood in Maryland in the years following the 9/11 attacks. "I really didn't understand why people from different cultures wanted to kill each other," says Ms. Danielle, now 22 and a senior at Harvard University.
After her family moved to Carlsbad, Calif., she continued to think about the concept of peace and how to achieve it. She read the nonviolent philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi and studied what Buddhism and Christianity had to say on the subject.
In 2006, together with Jill McManigal, a mother of two young children, Danielle, then 16, founded Kids for Peace a nonprofit, child-led group that inspires kids to work together toward a more peaceful world.
Today Kids for Peace has more than 75 chapters in several countries. In August, its Great Kindness Challenge, where children try to see how many acts of kindness they can perform in a single day, drew thousands of participants in 50 countries.
Members also sign a six-line "peace pledge" in which they promise to "speak in a kind way," "help others," "care for our Earth," "respect people," and work together.
Beyond that, kids in each chapter design their own projects. "We really want the kids to be the leaders," Danielle says.
Last November, she was named a winner of the World of Children award for her work, and Kids for Peace was given a $20,000 grant.
In the near future, Danielle hopes to work on peace issues in Bangladesh or at a refugee camp in Africa. Either way, she'll carry on with Kids for Peace, too. "It grows with me, and I grow with it," she says.
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