Founded By:

Sponsored By:

Craig Kielburger

Craig Kielburger is the founder and chair of Free The Children, a unique international development and youth empowerment organization. Since 1995, Free The Children has become the world’s leading youth-driven charity, inspiring an entire generation to stand up and have their voices heard.

With the involvement of 3,500 Youth in Action chapters and schools, Free The Children has built more than 650 schools throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, providing daily education to more than 55,000 children in 16 countries. Through its Adopt a Village development model, it has established more than 30,000 alternative income projects to assist women and their families in achieving sustainable incomes.

 

One of Free The Children’s most notable projects has been a joint project with Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network called O Ambassadors. The project was designed to educate, engage and inspire more than one million young people across North America to take action to help their underprivileged peers overseas.

Craig is also the Co-founder and Director of ‘Me to We’. This social enterprise encourages ethical living and social responsibility, while also aiming to bring Free The Children’s already low administrate rate to 0%, ensuring every penny goes to charitable programs. Me to We includes carbon-neutral international volunteer travel programs, leadership camps, a publishing house, a music label, and the largest organic made-in-Canada clothing line.

Craig has a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto and is the youngest-ever graduate of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program. He has received six honorary doctorates for his work in the field of education and human rights. Craig has traveled to more than 50 countries, visiting underprivileged children and helping with humanitarian projects and development initiatives.

He is the co-author of three national bestsellers. His latest book, The World Needs Your Kid: Raising Children Who Care and Contribute, will be released across North America in the fall of 2010 and features a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

 

Together with his brother Marc, Craig is a syndicated columnist carried by the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Huffington Post and Canada’s most widely-read women’s magazine, Canadian Living.

Craig has been awarded many national and international awards for his work, including The Roosevelt Freedom Medal, The World Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (often called the Children’s Nobel Prize) and he is one of the youngest recipients of The Order of Canada. His work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, BBC as well as many other news and print media.