Everywhere in the world, we can observe and be touched by acts of kindness. People from all walks of life, faiths, and cultures extend themselves beyond the call of duty to help others unconditionally. Through their noble deeds, humanity as a whole is elevated.

To commend virtuous actions and encourage more people to be inspired by their examples, Supreme Master Ching Hai has lovingly created a series of awards, including the Shining World Leadership Award, Shining World Compassion Award, Shining World Hero and Heroine Awards, Shining World Honesty Award, 3Shining World Protection Award, Shining World Intelligence Award, and Shining World Inventor Award, to recognize some of the most exemplary, generous, caring, and courageous people who walk amongst us.

In 1995 12-year-old Craig Kielburger captured the attention of the world when he spoke out against child labor. The movement began.

Craig Kielburger is trying to find his way through the corridors of Congress – and his fight to shut down child labor.

You have the power, in your words, in your actions, and in your policy making.

Craig decided to take a seven-week trip to South Asia.

Has he ever gone to school?

He does not know what a school is, at all.

With a group of friends, he founded an organization called Free the Children. I’d like to commit to building a hundred schools around the world, a hundred schools.

Very, very powerful vehicle that we’re creating here and can move children in this direction to take action.

Free the Children is now a global movement active in 45+ countries driven by youth over 1 million shamelessly idealistic youth who are passionate about changing the world.

Free the Children was founded back in 1995, when Craig was 12 years old. And he was looking for the comic section of our local newspaper, the Toronto Star, and instead of seeing the comic section that day he saw the front-page article of another 12-year-old boy named Iqbal . Iqbal grew up in a very poor family, in a very poor community in Pakistan.

And his parents were illiterate, and one day, a money lender came to the village, and he said to Iqbal’s parents, “I will promise that Iqbal will get a good job and a good education, and I’ll give you 16 dollars. And here is the contract. And Iqbal’s parents again were illiterate and couldn’t read the contract properly, so they signed the contract with their thumb print, and Iqbal went off. And of course he did not get a good job, and he did not get a good education.

Iqbal ended up working in a carpet factory, tying tiny knots in hand made carpets that would come to North America to be on our floors. And he did this every single day, day after day until he was 10, and when he was 10 years old, he was very lucky, he was able to run away.

And he was hooked up with the human rights organization locally in Pakistan and began to speak out against child labor. He was very eloquent, and eventually he got a big award in the United States, and became an international spokesperson on the issue, and was reunited back with his family.

And very tragically at the age of 12, was killed, and he was killed for speaking out. So Craig started being very upset about this, and never had heard about child labor before, took the article to his class that afternoon and said, “Who wants to help?” And a whole bunch of kids put up their hands, and that’s when the organization was founded in my parent’s basement that evening.

And then myself and others got involved right away, and over the last 15 years, it started as that one club in the one school, and now we’re well in excess of 3,500 schools. And we work with about a million kids here in North America to help their underprivileged peers overseas.

With the efforts of 3,500 Youth In Action groups in the United States and Canada, Free the Children has built more than 500 schools throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. Now more than 55,000 children are able to attend school every day thanks to the construction of these facilities.

Hi, so welcome to Free the Children, the largest network of children helping children through education and we’re here at the head office.

Welcome to Free the Children.

And some of the artwork on the walls have been painted by children as well. This is the youth team. And this is where the magic happens, where they empower our youth across Canada.

Hi!

Hi, welcome to the office. We’re the youth team. We work with about 3500 groups across North America, whether people are two years old or 22 years old and they want to get involved. This is what we do, is we engage them at Free the Children in all of our wonderful campaigns.

Hallo, welcome to the American team. We work with groups across the United States and internationally. A lot of exciting work happens here, we’ve worked with over 2000 groups across the US in every state, so we’ve been well-represented across US and really excited to work with any new groups that come our way.

Imagine that you woke up every day, believing that you could make a difference in the world.

Now imagine it wasn’t just you, imagine it was everyone.

Through the past two years and two-three days, you have stood up, you have taken action, and you have proved that change is possible.

Pay attention about the importance of warm-heartedness. We must make special effort to promote human warm-heartedness or compassion.

Learning to live in peace within ourselves, between our communities, between religions.

…of extraordinary moments of promise of extraordinary promise, of hope. We are each other’s hope.

Keep pushing, keep hollering, keep shouting, and this, this mighty wave will become the tide that can shape the course of history.

We have clubs in schools – elementary schools, high schools, and even colleges and university campuses – all across North America. And what they do is, again, they adopt a sister school or a partner school in a developing country. And they get to not only understand the fact that they can make a difference, but they get to understand that the kids they’re helping aren’t that dissimilar from them. They’re kids just like them.

They have hopes and dreams and aspirations just like them. They just happen to be born in circumstances where their resources are poor. So they understand these issues not simply as statistics, but they understand the fact that these people in a developing world are friends. And that bond of friendship and bond of compassion is as a result created.

We use this model called “Adopt A Village” in our work overseas. So we see that it’s not just enough to build a school. Because the number one reason, for example, why girls can’t go to schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, isn’t because there is no enough schools, because they have to get water for their village. So all of our school programs have water, all of our school programs have health care, because if you can build a great school but the kids aren’t healthy, then they’re not going to go to school. (Right.)

And all of our schools have alternative sources of income or micro-credit, micro-loans or financial literacy, depending on the country, here we’re able to ensure that the parents can afford to send their kids to school. And then within five years we can exit the village, because the parents can afford the economic creation incentives, so that they can as a result take over the projects themselves.

So how are these funded?

They’re funded by kids. About 60% of our budget is from kids. Very, very passionate kids. We have, again, car washes, bake sales, we have dance-a-thons, we have different programs we do. One is called “Vow of Silence,” which is very popular among parents, where we have kids be silent for 24 hours. So they do no phone, no talking, no Facebook, no Twittering, no conversations, nothing.

And it’s very, very challenging because they never have been silent for that long, but they are silent in solidarity for kids around the world who have no voice, and also serves as a fundraiser for Free the Children. The majority of the funds for the programs actually come from kids themselves, which is very cool, and very important to our mission.

Because if we really want to end poverty in our lifetime, we have to do it in the developing world; we also have to change how we live in North America, too, and that starts with this next generation.

Is there a message you would like to send to kids who are not involved with Free the Children?

Absolutely. One is to get involved. Very simple, go to and there is lots of ways to engage in people on the website. So we’re very excited to offer that. Number two is that believing in power that you have to create change. And again, as mentioned, we’re the first generation in history that could actually end poverty in our lifetime.

And number three is that every generation faces a major social justice issue. Our generation is actually the fact that we can end poverty, and to get involved. And this is an opportunity for all young people to come together, in a very concrete way to actually create concrete change. And I’m very excited about that. So hope they will get engaged and make a difference.

Okay. Thank you so much, (Good.) Marc. (Thank you.) Say halo to Craig for us.

I will, thank you.

For their caring dedication to uplifting children around the world, Supreme Master Ching Hai honored Marc and Craig Kielburger with the Shining World Compassion Award, along with a US$10,000 contribution toward their noble cause.

“Dear Mr. Marc and Craig Kielburger, It is with wonder, admiration and the deepest gratitude that we present to you the “Shining World Compassion Award.” This Award is presented in recognition of your absolutely outstanding achievements in inspiring nobility and compassion in millions of children, and for your incomparable leadership in making Free the Children such a powerful agent of positive change.

…we hereby applaud and celebrate the great deeds of Craig and Marc Kielburger, founders of Free the Children. With Great Honor, Love and Blessings, Supreme Master Ching Hai”

It’s very beautiful. Thank you very much. It’s extremely, extremely generous.

Supreme Master Ching Hai asked us to give you this check for US$10,000 dollars (Thank you.) for your organization.

Thank you. It’s again extremely, extremely generous of the Supreme Master, and we’ll make sure that this goes to helping kids around the world, and we are very excited by the prospects of more projects because of your generosity.

In addition, Mr. Kielburger was also presented gifts, which included Supreme Master Ching Hai’s #1 internationally bestselling books, “The Dogs in My Life” and “The Birds in My Life.”

Just want to say thank you to Supreme Master Ching Hai for the award and the presentation and the generosity. And we look forward to making sure that the world becomes a more peaceful and humane place with additional guidance and support. Just want to say thank you again. And we look forward to hopefully meeting you one day soon.

Look around you, there is millions of other people who believe in this message as you do, you are not alone. You have stood up, you have taken action. You have shown that massive change is possible.

There are millions of people taking action with Free the Children to create a better world. Join us. For more information about Free the Children, please visit

We send gratitude and admiration to Mr. Marc and Craig Kielburger and all staff and participants of Free the Children, for helping to turn our shared dream for a happier, fulfilled world into a reality. Wishing you, and the people whose lives you have touched, continued success with Heaven’s grace and love.

Thank you, gentle viewers, for being with us on today’s program. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News, on Supreme Master Television. May God’s light and love guide your heart, always.