Craig and Marc Kielburger

Craig and Marc Kielburger

One morning over breakfast, 12-year-old Craig Kielburger was flipping through the newspaper looking for the comics when he was stopped short by a story: Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old former child slave in Pakistan, had been murdered because he spoke up for human rights.

Craig was 12. Iqbal was 12. In that moment, he was struck by a single and profound connection – except for the happenstance of birth, he could have been Iqbal – and he needed to do something.

But what? He was only one person, and a boy at that. What possible difference could he make in the lives of child slaves a world away?

What was needed: a collective voice. So Craig convinced a handful of Grade 7 classmates that together they could make an impact, and Free the Children, now the WE Charity was born.  Along with his older brother Marc, Craig and his team set out on a bold mission: to free children and their families from poverty and exploitation.

Today, WE is a movement that brings people together and gives them the tools to change the world. Today, we are millions of passionate youth, women and men working together to shift the world from “me” to “we.”

Craig and Marc Kielburger has appeared in the following PEACE Fund Radio episodes: