Rebels For Peace

Rebels for Peace is a movement to rebel against the mindsets that perpetuate racism and inequity in communities across the US. We do so with peer-to-peer teaching of students, parents, and participants in the criminal justice system about how the mind works, how to access our innate resilience and well-being, and how every human has a choice of how to respond when external forces act upon them.

Our solution for the MIT Solve application is to scale remote delivery of our Rebels for Peace programming into elementary and high schools and parent programs across the US.

Our programs focus on and treat the internal source of problems like inequality, hopelessness, and the violence that ensues. Our programs and curricula educate young people about their innate resilience so they can reconnect to a deeper sense of well-being and freedom of thinking, allowing them to break out of destructive, learned thought systems.

Our solution, Rebels for Peace, delivered via remote video conferencing into classrooms and parent councils across the US, addresses the lack of well-being that perpetuate violence and inequality in our communities.

The problem we are addressing is the lack of education about well-being and resilience for youth and their parents in underserved elementary and high schools.

We believe our solution addresses the core element that unlocks the opportunity for antiracist and equitable futures in the US.

Rebels for Peace has operated as both an in-person and virtual program in the south side of Chicago since 2017. In that time we have impacted over 100 young adult changemakers, 75 elementary school students, and over 100 parents with our in-person and virtual delivery. Rebels for Peace has also offered programming in youth and adult prisons in Portland, OR, in partnership with our partner, The Insight Alliance.

Rebels for Peace is a peer-to-peer delivered program based on an evidence-based, CASEL-approved SPARK Curriculum, social-emotional learning curricula for elementary and high school students delivered via Zoom video conferencing into schools, parent councils, and juvenile correction facilities across the US.

Rebels for Peace programs are delivered by peers -- recent high school graduates teaching high school students; high school students teaching primary school students, and trained parents teaching parents of primary and high school students.

With the investment to scale video conferencing capabilities and additional training of our leadership facilitator group, Rebels for Peace programming is ready to be delivered at scale to students across elementary and high schools, to the parents of those students, and to juveniles in the prison system.

There is a mental health crisis in this country and the combined impact of systemic racism, barriers to access mental and physical health resources, and a tragically failing education and criminal justice system mean our black and brown communities are especially hard hit by this crisis. Rebels for Peace is passionately led by young people of color who have discovered how to reclaim their mental freedom, their well being, and have a vision for how to transform the racist and unjust systems that currently underpin our society.

Our evidence indicates that in serving a BIPOC population with an understanding of the mind and greater access to our internal well-being, tools and opportunities once seen as ‘for someone else’ are seen as possibilities for all.

From a place of well-being and awareness of how thought creates reality, accessing education, high-earning career paths, and wealth creation appear as choices to be made for themselves rather than opportunities for others.

Rebels for Peace has been delivered to primary and secondary school students and parents in Chicago and to juvenile criminal justice system participants in Oregon. We are ready to expand delivery nationwide with further investment in technology and leadership training capacity.

The Rebels for Peace programs focus on and treat the internal source of problems like inequality, hopelessness, and the violence that ensues. These are not problems young people are born with, they're problems they are born into. Our programs and curricula educate young people about their innate resilience so they can reconnect to a deeper sense of well-being and freedom of thinking, allowing them to break out of destructive, learned thought systems.

This largely dependant on funding to allow scaling of our leadership training program and our technology platform. 

2 full-time

4 part-time

We are a team of world-renowned curriculum experts, partnered with local students and parents to deliver the program.

Co-Founders Mara Gleason Olsen and Eirik Grunde Olsen are world-renowned experts in teaching the understanding of the mind.

DaJohn White, CEO of Rebels for Peace has emerged as the leader of this organization and drawn several dozen senior high school students into the leadership training program that supports the delivery of Rebels for Peace.

Krystal Burns, lead of the Parents program is an active parent from the local community in southside Chicago and is well-positioned to scale the program with investment.

Our leadership team represents content expertise and a broad and diverse representation of the communities we serve.

Our programs focus on and treat the internal source of problems like inequality, hopelessness, and the violence that ensues. These are not problems young people are born with, they're problems they are born into. Our programs and curricula educate young people about their innate resilience so they can reconnect to a deeper sense of well-being and freedom of thinking, allowing them to break out of destructive, learned thought systems. 

Rebels for Peace is a movement to rebel against the mindsets that perpetuate racism and inequity in communities across the US. We do so with peer-to-peer teaching of students, parents, and participants in the criminal justice system about how the mind works, how to access our innate resilience and well being, and how every human has a choice of how to respond when external forces act upon them.

Our solution is to scale remote delivery of our Rebels for Peace programming into elementary and high schools and parent programs across the US.

Our programs focus on and treat the internal source of problems like inequality, hopelessness, and the violence that ensues. These are not problems young people are born with, they're problems they are born into. Our programs and curricula educate young people about their innate resilience so they can reconnect to a deeper sense of well-being and freedom of thinking, allowing them to break out of destructive, learned thought systems.

We have proven that in any context, people that think better feel better, and people that feel better do better. With greater well being, young people see how to solve problems in their own lives, and feel motivated to improve their wider community and overhaul the systemic barriers that stand in their way

Rebels for Peace is a movement to rebel against the mindsets that perpetuate racism and inequity in communities across the US. We do so with peer-to-peer teaching of students, parents, and participants in the criminal justice system about how the mind works, how to access our innate resilience and well being, and how every human has a choice of how to respond when external forces act upon them.

Our solution is to use technology to scale remote delivery of our Rebels for Peace programming into elementary and high schools and parent programs across the US.

Rebels for Peace is a movement to rebel against the mindsets that perpetuate racism and inequity in communities across the US. We do so with peer-to-peer teaching of students, parents, and participants in the criminal justice system about how the mind works, how to access our innate resilience and well being, and how every human has a choice of how to respond when external forces act upon them.