A Nobel Peace Prize winner gave a public lecture in the College of Medicine auditorium on Friday, March 19, as part of Florida State University’s second PeaceJam Southeast conference. Florida State University is the headquarters for PeaceJam Southeast, a program of FSU’s Center for Leadership and Civic Education.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum, an indigenous Guatemalan of the Quiche-Maya ethnic group, was awarded the prize in 1992. She is the youngest woman and the first Native American to receive this honor.

Having lived through the brutal Guatemalan Civil War, which spanned from 1960 until 1996, Tum witnessed many human rights abuses. Her father and brother were burned alive, her mother was tortured and killed and another brother was executed, as well.

During the war, over 200,000 Guatemalans were murdered, and the Mayan people were brutally attacked by the military, which destroyed 450 Indian villages and displaced one million people as refugees.

When Tum began to speak out against these atrocities, she had to go into hiding and avoid staying in one place for too long in order to prevent her own torture and execution. Her work contributed to the 1996 Peace Accords, which ended the Guatemalan Civil War and restored many rights back to the indigenous Mayan people.

An elementary school student from the Florida State University Schools presented Tum with the gift of a worry doll. The student was one of hundreds who are currently working with the PeaceJam curriculum.

Delia Poey of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at FSU translated Tum’s speech, which was in Spanish.

“We need to look at what our generation needs to deal with (in) the world,” said Rudy Balles, master of ceremonies for the PeaceJam event, who introduced Tum. “Native people have carried a great intelligence for a long time.”

In her speech, Tum referred to human beings as three-dimensional — a whole human being possesses a material, social and spiritual dimension.

“The problem with the world today is that we are not living in all three dimensions,” said Tum.

Tum encouraged today’s youth to get involved in public policy to produce solutions to many of the world’s ills.

“I do not wish that you go through the suffering I have gone through in order to gain consciousness — instead, you should help the cause, because you never know when you will suffer as others have suffered,” said Tum. “We want to create a world where we can create new, more lasting alternatives. This is what I have come to share with the young people. You can have passion for humanity, but you cannot just theorize; humanity is our own capacity to transcend ourselves.”

During the question and answer portion of her speech, Tum discussed the need for change in the practice of public policy, not just a change in written legislation or declarations.

“If all governments listened to the people, we would have more common solutions,” said Tum. “The answer is in daily attitudes, not legislation.”

Christina Perez, a first-year student at FSU, said that seeing Tum was a personal inspiration.

“I felt the lecture touched on a lot of important themes relating to human rights violations in Latin America,” said Perez. “It motivated me to pursue activism.”

The speech marked one of several events held as part of the PeaceJam conference, where about 60 FSU students served as conference mentors in service and workshop activities.

“I’m working on the PeaceJam conference, and I’ve been working with the Global Peace Exchange at FSU and one of our projects is in Guatemala, so I wanted to see the person we have been focusing on for the project,” said FSU senior Belinda Velez.

PeaceJam is an international educational program that works with young people using Nobel Peace Laureates to pass on the message of peace.

“We are honored to be PeaceJam headquarters for the Southeast,” said FSU President Eric J. Barron. “The goal is to inspire people to go forth and tackle some of the world’s more difficult problems.”

PeaceJam works to eliminate extreme poverty, end racism and hate, restore the environment, halt the spread of global disease and promote social justice and rights for all people.

“Through Global Call to Action projects, PeaceJam is striving toward 1 billion acts of peace over the next 10 years,” said Rody Thompson, director of PeaceJam Southeast.

For more information on the PeaceJam organization, visit www.peacejam.org.