“Me” to “We”- Catching up with Craig Kielburger

“Imagine waking up every morning believing that your actions can make a significant change in the world.”

I had the privilege of attending a keynote presentation made by the remarkable Craig Kielburger, an award-winning child rights activist. He inspired the University of Calgary students, staff, faculty and the community on how to take action and become global citizens effectively in our changing world. His speech “Me to We: How University Students Can Create Positive Social Change” explored how social change was more than just donating money- it’s a lifestyle.

“The world has never tried hard enough,” Kielburger exclaimed, with a colour graph of Africa on a slideshow, “42 per cent of all the money donated has been to aid, while only two per cent has been used to build schools and houses.” We will go around from store to store to get the best deals, but when are we donating to a charity, do we know where our dollars and cents goes? That most of the money we actually donate to world charities is given to countries in need to pay off the interest of the debt they owe the same first world countries? We can have to reach out and take action, and at the very least, try.

Youth have the power to create change, and they actually have. Kielburger did. At 12 years of age, Kielburger read the front page of a newspaper with the headline, “Battled Child Labour, Boy 12, Murdered!” A boy of 12 years in Pakistan, Iqbal Masih, had been travelling the world in an attempt to reveal the horrors of child labour to the world, having been freed from being enslaved and shackled to a carpet-weaving loom. He was then later shot, rumoured to be by made by members of the carpet industry who threatened to silence the child activist.

Kielburger was shocked and bewildered at the world for allowing such cruel and horrifying things to happen to children, especially when they were the same age as he. Even though public speaking was not Kielburger’s forte at the time, he courageously stood up at the front of his classroom and shared with his fellow classmates the plight of child labour. Asking for voices determined to help him fight for the rights of children, and believing they could change the world, Free the Children was born.

Now Free the Children is an international youth empowerment and child rights organization. Free the Children aims to free children from poverty and exploitation – the key being education. Also, Free the Children inspires young people to explore the notion that they can, in fact, affect positive change.

“We all have a calling and we all have a gift,” Kielburger excitedly conveyed to the students, after stating his equation of Spark + Gift = Better World. “Everyone is born with special talents, and it is our responsibility to help find solutions to problems affecting our world.”

He is also the co-founder of Me to We, a social enterprise that leads us to embrace ethical living and social responsibility, and encourages us to reconsider how we want to live and the legacy that we want to leave.

“So many people think charity is just writing a cheque”, Kielburger animatedly exclaimed, “but social life is a lifestyle.” In style, the things we buy, the books we read. “Are you reading a book to escape, or are you opening a book that opens your eyes to the world?”

I was fortunate enough  to have had a chance to catch him after his motivational speech of transforming our perspective from “Me” to “We.” Patiently, but nervously, waiting for my opportunity to speak with him, I explained my fundraiser, the Picture the Future Campaign, that aims to rehabiliate former child soldiers and encourages youth to take pictures with signs supporting our campaign to project that youth could be agents of change. I was excited to take a picture with Kielburger to help my team advertise the totally unique fundraising campaign. The sign was rather a slapdash last minute idea, but he didn’t mind the unconventional sign – a sign is a sign in the end.  He politely nodded as I hurriedly explained our campaign with him, and his face lit up and was humbly surprised when I professed that after watching a video of him speaking for child rights at the age of 12, that he was one of my “sparks,” or one of the callings to social activism that brought me to action.

“All we have to do is believe that we can social change can happen” Craig encouraged us,”and it will.”