Resources for Teachers and Students
Prepare: Craig Kielburger first became involved
as a child advocate at the age of twelve. By the time he
was 21 years old, he had traveled to 40 countries in pursuit
of children's rights. His biography
can be found on the website of Free The Children, an organization
he helped found.
Read:
Craig Kielburger wrote an
original essay for the Architects of Peace project.
In it, he discusses the dream of eliminating child poverty
within the world community, a dream he thinks is attainable.
Explore: In his Architects of Peace essay, Kielburger
claims that for a spending increase of less money than Americans
spend on cosmetics in one year, we could put every child
on the planet in school. Is this true? Are there statistics
available regarding the number of children worldwide who
live without the benefits of education? If so, how much
more money would it cost to educate them? Use an internet
search engine to attempt to gather data pertinent to these
questions.
Write: Advocacy areas concentrated upon within the
Free the Children network include: war-affected children,
child labor, sexual exploitation, and child poverty. In
each of these areas, a major strategy among child advocates
is to increase public awareness regarding the extent of
the problem. Toward that end, write a three-to-five page
abstract about the child advocacy concern of your choice,
attempting to gather statistics from the website of a reputable
international organization such as the World Health Organization,
the International Red Cross, the Children's Defense Fund,
and UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.
Extend:
A major project of Kielburger's Free the Children organization
is called the "Schools
for Peace Program," which is aimed at building
schools in war-torn countries around the world. To fund
this effort, the organization relies heavily on local fundraising
projects conducted by young people themselves. Suggestions
on how to organize such a project can be found on their
website.
Additional Resource: Recently, the United Nations
has appointed a Special
Representative of the Secretary General for Children
and Armed Conflict. This person's mandate is to act as an
advocate building awareness of the needs of war-affected
children.
Biography of Craig
Kielburger