Craig Kielburger - Living Hero #9

Craig Kielburger was only a twelve year old Canadian schoolchild who was looking for the comics in the newspaper when he read an article that set him off on his life’s crusade. The article was about Iqhal Mashi, a former slave in Pakistan who had been freed. Mashi used his freedom to speak out against debt slavery and he was a public advocate of children’s rights when he was assassinated at the age of thirteen. Craig Kielburger was struck by the story and decided to take action.

Keilburger founded founded Free the Children, an organization dedicated to fighting child slave labour and encouraging children to speak up against injustice. Within a year, thirteen year old Craig Keilburger was meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chretien and convincing him that Canada had a moral responsibility to take up the issue.

Kielburger's Free the Children is now fourteen years old, and the organization has built more than four hundred schools in twenty three different countries. They have more than one million youth supporters worldwide, and sixty five per cent of the funds raised come from young people.

It is hard not to want to step up and take action when presented with leadership like this. Craig Kielburger was able to create global change and awareness at the age of twelve. Imagine what the rest of us are capable of achieving.

"What this is all about is political will. If our own country [Canada] and other countries made it clear that child labor is both illegal and unacceptable, then this problem wouldn't exist." - Craig Keilburger (b. 1982)

There Is Never Enough Time To Do All The Nothing You Want

The chaos of the week is behind me and I realize that while I was busy pursuing my goals, spring had arrived and with its arrival, a sobering awareness has come over me.

While I continue to reach for more, I do not always notice what I already hold in my hands or what is tragically slipping through my fingers.

“Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” - Eddie Cantor (1892 - 1964)

Extinct is Forever

Polar bears are becoming endangered and the Inuit of Baffin Bay are opposing the government’s decision to cut the quota of polar bears that can be hunted. When you consider that the polar bear is the first species to become endangered by global warming, it is hard not to see the Inuit’s position. Cutting the hunting quota to 65 bears from 105 is going to have a negligible affect on the rate of decline of their population considering the number of polar bears that are drowning in the newly opened sea.

The same week the Nunavut Government announced the hunting quota reduction, the Alberta Government announced a new oil and gas royalty regime that will stimulate more oil exploration while making a commitment to “streamline regulator approvals for the oil and gas industry”. Read - ease environmental regulations and standards. Alberta already has the reputation of producing some of the world’s dirtiest oil and we’re going to ease our environmental standards? Is there anyone even awake out there or are we all too busy making a buck and taking care of our own?

Arctic ice is melting faster than even the most paranoid scientists could imagine, and our ecology is changing forever. Forever. That’s a long time. A heck of a lot longer than our oil reserves are going to last.

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” - Ansel Adams (1902 -1984)

One Step Forward . . .

I missed my UBBT 6 graduation because of an opportunity I could not afford to pass up. I have had a systemic problem with massive swelling in my knees since November 16, 2008 and they can’t seem to find any reason why this is happening to me. I have been in the queue to see a pain/rehab specialist and of course my turn came up at the same time as the UBBT graduation. I am very disappointed that I couldn’t attend the graduation but I had to take the opportunity to get to the bottom of this issue that has been affecting me for my entire UBBT 6 and is following me through the Live Like a Champion Project.

The results of my appointment were a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is it is definitely not rheumatoid arthritis. This was my biggest fear as the swelling hit both knees at the exact same time overnight. That specific symptom usually points to an autoimmune issue. The bad news is that there is no obvious systemic reason why my legs are causing me so much grief. I was really hoping for a definitive answer to my problem but I will have to be satisfied knowing that my immune system has not betrayed me.

All in all I am happy with things. I am on a rehab program to try and recover some of the muscle mass I have lost in my legs over the past sixteen months and I now have the confidence that I am not going to exasperate my issues by pushing the knees a little harder in the coming months.

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” - Lance Armstrong (b. 1971)