FTC Today.....

History: How did Free the Children begin?

Free the Children was founded by Craig Kielburger, a young Canadian, in 1995. One day while getting ready for school Craig reached for the comic section of the newspaper to have his laugh for the day. Craig loved to read the comics!

Suddenly, he saw on the front page of the Toronto Star a picture of a boy wearing a bright red vest with his fist held high. The headline read "Boy, 12, murdered for speaking out against child labor".

The article told the story of a young boy from Pakistan, Iqbal Masih, who was sold into child labor at the age of four as a carpet weaver to pay back a loan that his parents had taken out. Iqbal worked 12 hours a day six days a week tying tiny knots to make carpets. He lost his freedom to laugh and to play. He lost his freedom to go to school. The article said that when he was 12 years old, the same age as Craig at the time, he was murdered.

Craig had never heard about child labor and wasn�t even certain where Pakistan was on the world map but the differences in their lives shocked him.

When Craig discovered that there are 250 million child laborers in the world, one half of them working full time, and many in hazardous conditions, he knew that he had to help. He wasn�t certain what he could do, but he knew that he had to at least try.

Craig gathered a group of friends together, most of them 12 years old like him, and they founded the organization called Free the Children -. not only to free children from abuse and exploitation, but to free children from the idea that they are not old enough or smart enough or capable enough to help change the world.

Free the Children was born.

In the beginning Free the Children had four main goals:

• to create greater awareness of the issue of child labor and children�s rights.
• to pressure world leaders (business and government) to make the protection and the education of children a priority.
• to create programs to help free children from exploitation and abuse.
• to work in cooperation with children in developing countries and around the world.

Craig and his friends started with many small actions: The activities they organized included the following:

• A petition asking world leaders to help end child labor and the exploitation of children.
• A letter writing campaign. They wrote letters to newspapers, to the Prime Minister, to the President and to other world leaders.
• An education campaign: They made flyers and set up bulletin boards and displays in public places on child labor and children�s rights. They gave speeches to students in various classes in their school, to young people in other schools and to community groups. Soon they developed a reputation for being good speakers and began to receive many invitations from different groups.
• They organized fund raising events like garage sales, car washes, bake sales and walk-a-thons to raise money to help build schools and to create alternative sources of income for working children and their families

How did Free the Children grow so fast into an international children'� organization?

In November, 1995, when Free the Children was 6 months old and Craig was still 12 years old, he received an invitation to speak to 2000 people at the Ontario Federation of Labor Convention, in Toronto, Canada. Craig was told that he could only speak for 3 minutes, but he spoke for 15 minutes and received several standing ovations. That day, the 2000 union members were so moved by Craig�s speech that they donated $150,000 to Free the Children to help build a rehabilitation and education center in Alwar, India, for children who were freed from slavery as carpet weavers.

Free the Children at that point, was 8 months old and Craig knew that the time had come to go to South Asia and meet the child workers, himself. He wanted to hear their stories and their ideas on how Free the Children could help. But Craig�s parents wouldn�t even let him take the subway downtown by himself. Would they ever let him go to South Asia? It took a lot of convincing! Craig had to prove to them that he would be safe and that he could help raise the money for the trip. On December 9, 1995, Craig left for a seven week trip to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Nepal to meet street and working children. He was accompanied by a 25 year old student and friend very much interested in human rights issues. You can read all about Craig�s trip and the children he met, in his book, Free the Children.

When Craig was in South Asia, he crossed paths with the Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, who was touring Asia with the "Team Canada" trade mission. Craig asked to meet with him because he wanted him to take a stand against child labor. The Prime Minister turned him down. Craig and a group of children from India, two of them freed bonded laborers, set up a press conference. News of the press conference and the story of the children who had been freed from slavery was carried by media around the world. The Prime Minister agreed to meet with Craig.

When Craig returned to Canada, he and the other children continued speaking out against child labor and for children�s rights. The media helped them to make child labor an issue on an international level. Soon young people around the world realized that they, too, had power and could make a difference.