Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and six other leading Nobel Peace Prize winners are traveling to Los Angeles in mid-September to launch an ambitious international youth movement aimed at inspiring a billion service projects over the next 10 years.

The Nobel laureates will gather with 3,000 high school and college youth from more than 37 countries at Loyola Marymount University for the Global Call to Action conference Sept. 11-13.

The decade long campaign --- organized by the PeaceJam Foundation --- brings together youth and Nobel laureates to discuss the most difficult global problems and to strategize solutions, among them ending racism, stopping the spread of global disease, ending extreme poverty, restoring the environment, breaking the cycle of violence in local communities as well as controlling the global proliferation of weapons.

PeaceJam has created curriculum for youth from kindergarten through college.

"The Nobel laureates have always wanted to work in a deeper, closer way with youth," said Dawn Engle who co-founded Denver-based PeaceJam with her friend and now husband Ivan Suvanjieff. "We've become the international educational outreach program for these 12 Nobel laureates to the youth of the world."

The Nobel laureates developed the idea of the Global Call to Action in 2006, and the September conference launches the audacious goal of galvanizing youth world-wide to create and complete a billion service projects in 10 years.

"The Nobel laureates we work with are really big thinkers," said Engle. The campaign aims to create a new generation of young leaders committed to positive change with the inspiration of Nobel Peace laureates.

Seven Nobel Peace Prize winners will attend the kick-off conference, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jody Williams, President Jose Ramos-Horta, Betty Williams, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and Shirin Ebadi.

The conference is built around the themes of education, inspiration and action. Students preparing for the conference have begun implementing a PeaceJam curriculum with a step-by-step guide to create their own Global Call to Action project.

Youth will get about two minutes to present their project to one of the Nobel laureates who will give them feedback. Archbishop Tutu will listen to project ideas involving stopping the global spread of disease; Jody Williams on the international arms trade; Betty Williams on the environment.

"They really become amazing young leaders learning about grassroots community organizing and implementing a project," said Engle.

A campaign this bold requires lots of networking, and PeaceJam entered into a partnership with Loyola Marymount University and the Cesar Chavez Foundation to help them launch the global initiative and to deliver the PeaceJam program in California. Youth arriving Sept. 11 will participate in local service projects like volunteering at a food bank or painting murals.

Some 240 LMU/PeaceJam student mentors will accompany high school student groups throughout the conference.

"When we put the call out to mentors, we were filled within a week," said Pam Rector, director of LMU's Center for Service and Action. "It's a pretty rare occasion when students get to see seven Nobel laureates all in one place with a focus on this global call to action."

During the conference Penguin Books will release the official handbook for the campaign, "PeaceJam: A Billion Simple Acts of Peace." The PeaceJam Foundation will launch a new, interactive "Global Call to Action" Web site to track the progress of the campaign.

"We're inviting the whole world to participate," said Engle. Church youth groups are welcomed to create a project and register it on the Web site, she added.

The Nobel laureates plan to participate in PeaceJam conferences each year to continue mentoring young leaders.

Editor's note: The conference fee is $345 per person and includes meals and conference materials. A few scholarships are available. Register at www.peacejam.org .