Free The Children. Craig Kielburger
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a sale. Older kids dressed up as clowns to entertain younger kids while their parents shopped. There were organized games, bead bracelet vendors and a lemonade stand. We had FTC members with petitions on clipboards going through the crowds. TVO brought in a film crew.
As the crowds grew, so did the traffic problems. People we hadn’t seen in a long time came by. Strangers became new friends. Whenever someone asked who was in charge, one of the FTC crew would step forward, much to the visitor’s surprise.
That summer we learned more than what books or teachers could have taught us. We learned to take the initiative, and follow through. We learned a greater sense of self-worth. We discovered we could do more than talk about the world’s problems. When we set our minds to it, we could make a difference.
When school was set to resume in September, my mother took me aside. There was a serious matter on her mind. Throughout the summer, our house had become a rather public place, with kids and parents coming and going non-stop. The telephone and fax machine rang all hours of the night with messages from our contacts around the world. Our house was in a constant state of turmoil. My parents had been very patient through it all, but the strain was starting to show.
“I think it’s time for you to quit,” my mother said. “You’re about to begin Grade 8. This is your last year of elementary school, and it is an important year. Your dad and I have to go back to teaching. You have accomplished so much. But this can’t go on. We have to live as a family. We have to get back to having a normal life.”
I went to my room to think about what she had said.
At first, when Free The Children began, we received as much as we gave—we enjoyed the feeling of self-worth, happiness, the new insights and a sense of accomplishment. But now we had reached a whole new level of commitment, that point when real giving does not come without pain. Despite the pain, I knew in my heart that I could not quit, that our group had to at least try to do more. I had learned too much about the abuse of children. I was no longer the person I had been five months before.
But I also knew the toll it was taking on the family, how disrupted all our lives had become. I sat in my room a long time before coming out.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I know it’s been hard for you and Dad with everything going on around here,” I said. “But I just can’t give up now. You always tell us that we have to fight for what we believe in. Well, I believe in this.”
It was a turning point for my parents. Until that moment, they had seen Free The Children as a phase, a group of kids with a noble purpose who would eventually go on to other pursuits. But now they realized for me it had become a mission.
My parents looked at me long and hard and saw the commitment in my face. “All right,” my mother said. “If that is your decision, we’ll support you.”
And that support has never waned. Though not long after, it would be tested a great deal more than it had ever been before.
Earlier that summer I had met Dr. Panuddha Boonpala, a woman from the International Labour Organization in Geneva. She had worked with child labourers in the streets and factories of Thailand. I took to her right away. She was very bubbly and often broke into a wide grin, which made her look like a young girl. “If you really want to understand the issue of child labour,” she told me, “then you should go to South Asia and meet the children yourself.”
Her words never left me. The more I thought about what she had said, the more intense became my desire to make such a trip.
I felt my knowledge of the child labour issue was comprehensive—as comprehensive as it could get, given the resources available to me. But one thing was lacking in almost all of the material I had collected. There was very little perspective provided by the children themselves, the actual workers, the ones the articles and research papers were all about.
There was, it seemed to me, a virtual industry of organizations speaking on behalf of young people. But where were the working kids in all this? What did they feel about their predicament? If they had a choice, would they want to go to school? Did they have to work to survive? Some of the publications I read suggested that the kids had no interest in going to school, that they didn’t want to learn to read and write, that the work they did wasn’t even exploitative. Were these kids, then, different from myself and my friends?
These questions swam through my mind, and I knew that if I really wanted to understand the situation of these children, I would have to meet them myself. When I spoke to students they often asked, “Have you ever met any of these children?” and “How do you really know this is true?” I would always have to say no, that I hadn’t actually seen the conditions myself. No, but I did hope to go see the children someday.
My answers lacked authority. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I really needed and wanted to go to South Asia. And, in fact, I had read so much on child labour and seen so much through other people’s eyes that going to Asia myself was the logical next step.
Logical or not, my parents wouldn’t even consider it. “It’s another world. It’s too dangerous. You’re only twelve!”
I had discussed the idea on the telephone with Alam Rahman a number of times. Alam and I had gotten to know each other better. He was intrigued by the idea that people as young as myself would start a group to work on such a complex issue as child labour and make a serious commitment to it.
At twenty-four years of age, Alam was a serious and committed person himself. I think that’s what attracted my parents to him. They began to see him as a mentor for me. Over the months that we came to know him, my whole family grew to respect him as a person, as well as the depth of his knowledge and his willingness to spend long hours for the cause of social justice. In short, Alam was someone my parents admired and trusted.
One day, when I was working with a group of FTC friends at a food bank, I met Alam there. “Craig,” he said, “I’m going to South Asia for a year. I’m visiting my family in Bangladesh and then travelling around. Do you want to come with me? You could meet some working children.”
I almost passed out. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you serious?”
Alam had travelled to Asia before. But now he had decided to take a year off from his studies at the University of Toronto to find out more about his Asian roots. Though he spoke Bengali fluently, he wanted the opportunity to learn Hindi and Tano.
The time had come for me to get serious with my parents about going to Asia. But I knew it would not be easy; my parents wouldn’t even allow me to take the subway to downtown Toronto on my own—let alone go to Asia.
“Guess what, Mom. Great news! Alam is going to Asia and he asked me if I want to go.”
“Is that right?” she answered, knowing full well what was coming next.
“I know how much you think of Alam. He could be my chaperone. You know he would take good care of me.”
Silence. This is a good sign, I thought. At least it wasn’t the instant “no” that had sprung back at me every other time.
I pleaded, “Mom, what do I have to do to change your mind?”
“Convince me that you would be safe,” was the firm reply.
Convince her that I would be safe. Now, at last, I felt I was getting somewhere. Not an easy thing to do, I thought, but at least I know what I’m working with.
Looking back, I realize my mom was never totally against the idea of me going to Asia. She had definite and serious questions in her mind, and she was honestly looking for ways to answer them with me. She wanted to be supportive, as she had always been in the past, but at the same time her maternal instincts were welling up within her. If I could prove to her that I would be safe, that the trip would be well-organized, that the mountain of details that would come with such a trip could be taken care of, then I would be free to go. If not, then there was no way she was letting me out of her sight.
I immediately wrote to UNICEF in New York, telling them of my pending trip