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)
1 comment:
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Kielburger a few years ago. He is a very well spoken, passionate man now. His story is absolutely brilliant.
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