Ten Nobel Peace Prize winners will take part in the tenth annual PeaceJam youth festival.
The three day meeting starts Friday in Denver, in the western U.S. state of Colorado. The event begins with a concert this evening.
PeaceJam is a non-profit educational group devoted to encouraging what the organizers call "acts of peace." Some three thousand young people from around the world are expected to attend the festival.
Nobel Peace laureates scheduled to give talks to the youths include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Oscar Arias, the Dalai Lama, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Máiread Corrigan Maguire, Jody Williams Shirin Ebadi, José Ramos Horta, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Betty Williams. Event organizers say Aung San Suu Kyi will take part through a video, as she remains under house arrest in Burma.
Ivan Suvanjeff, a co-founder of the project, says the gathering is the largest ever of Nobel laureates in North America.