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One normal April morning, 12-year-old Craig Kielburger picked up the newspaper from the breakfast table and flicked through to find the comic section. But this day, a headline, ‘Battled child labour, boy 12, killed,’ caught his attention. Craig read on. He learnt of the story of Iqbal Masih, who died fighting for kids to be freed from child labour.
Craig was shocked. He sat at a breakfast table in Canada, where he and his family lived in safety, with access to medical care, food and a nice house, whilst other children were working long hours in factories with poor working conditions. Craig wanted to do something about this so that no others would suffer the same fate as Iqbal.
So he picked up the phone and called as many anti-child labour organisations as he could find, asking how he could help. They told Craig he was only a child and a child could not make a difference. Craig decided to prove them wrong. He started a movement for young people to fight child labour. And 24 years later, the WE movement he started has over four million supporters.
Craig found a cause he cared about and fought to create change. He says, ‘Change starts within each one of us.’ These are Craig’s three tips for young people taking on child labour:
