Free The Children. Craig Kielburger

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 and asking for advice about the arrangements. I knew they had contacts in every country, and that my parents would trust them. I sent letters to organizations in South Asia and contacted people I had met through human rights organizations in Canada.

      “Convince me that you would be safe.” Every night those words raced through my mind as I formed my plan. When my father set a second condition for going, that I would have to raise half the plane fare myself, I knew I was winning them over.

      UNICEF in New York agreed to contact their offices in South Asia to see if they would help. PLAN International, a development agency formerly known in some countries as Foster Parents Plan, also went looking for contact people willing to take care of us. I faxed friends we had made over the past months in organizations throughout South Asia, hoping for offers of accommodation.

      It was a very good start.

      Of course, I was back at school, trying to concentrate on the work to be done there. And the day-to-day operations of FTC continued. Over the summer our members had drifted off with their own vacation plans. After the garage sale, we found it difficult to get together for meetings, and it seemed to me that the energy within FTC, which had been so high, had begun to subside.

      I was worried that FTC would not regain its momentum. But after the first few days of September, it was clear there was no reason for concern. The phone started to ring, with kids checking in, anxious to discuss our plans for the fall, and offering their own ambitious ideas for new projects.

      Free The Children was filling a gap in many kids’ lives. At an age when we were constantly being told by adults what to do, FTC was something we took on voluntarily. It had our names on it. And it was our reputations that were at stake. FTC was almost revolutionary in allowing kids large amounts of responsibility. It seems to me that one of the consequences of a consumer-driven society is that many kids are bored by life in the suburbs. How many video games do they want to play? How many times do they want to go to the shopping mall? Kids are longing for something more meaningful in their lives, something more challenging, and something that allows them to prove themselves. FTC answered that need, and the kids involved in it weren’t about to give it up.

      For many of them it wasn’t an easy decision. Among our peer group they were being labelled by some as do-gooders and wimps. For the so-called “in crowd,” FTC just wasn’t cool enough. The mere fact that we were doing something out of the ordinary made us targets. We were unusual. We didn’t СКАЧАТЬ