Trusted viewers, welcome to Good People, Good Works. Today we present part two of our program about Free the Children, a wonderful charity founded in 1995 by two Canadian brothers, Craig and Marc Kielburger that is dedicated to uplifting disadvantaged youth in developing nations through education.

Hi my name Craig Kielburger and when I was 12 years old I started an organization called Free the Children. It was a group of 12, 12 years olds with a simple dream; we wanted to build a school overseas for kids. We’ve not only built one school, we’ve built 500 schools in developing countries providing daily education to 50, 000 children, 23,000 micro-credit cooperatives for women, clean water, health sanitation helping about a million people around the world.

Through the unwavering enthusiasm of its volunteers, Free the Children has become one of the world’s largest networks of children helping children, with 3,500 Youth In Action groups in the United States and Canada who are determined to constructively transform the world.

To support Free the Children’s laudable philanthropic mission, students from 45 Broward County schools in Florida, USA, recently raised nearly US$93,500 to help the organization construct 11 new schools for deserving children in Kenya. Arthur Rose, Assistant Director of Administration for the North Central area of the Broward County School Board and a project coordinator for Free the Children shares how it all began.

My wife and I were watching Channel 7 News WSVN and they were introducing a new news anchor by the name of Reed Cowan, and they shared that he had lost his child when his child was four years old. And in his devastation and his loss, he didn’t even know if he could live, and a friend said to him “Did you know that there were children Wesley’s age dying in Africa?”

Mr. Cowan started the Wesley Smiles Coalition in memory of his son, an organization that works in partnership with Free the Children. He traveled to Kenya with the goal of establishing schools there for underprivileged kids. Thus far two schools have been opened in the East African nation due to his tremendous efforts.

Michael Range is a student at a Broward County school called Northeast High School, located in Oakland Park, Florida, USA. He was inspired by Mr. Cowan’s work and was actively involved in his school’s project to raise funds for Free the Children.

We were there first-hand at the meeting where Reed Cowan was there and he explained thoroughly the whole entire story. The kids here only got the video. So every time we went to each class, we had to re-experience telling the story to someone else, and it would touch another person's heart, touch another person's soul and they would want to give more back to us, to “Free the Children,” so we can finally reach our goal.

Another Northeast High School student, Fara Ann Gonzalez was also involved in the project to support Free the Children.

We just really wanted to help. We just had this feeling, like this warm feeling in our (hearts), and we knew that everyone else would as well. So, we showed the video to everyone else in our school. That actually just made everyone else feel the same way we did. So when everyone heard that we could help, we did. Everyone got together and made it a huge success, bigger than we ever thought.

Our first project was a walk-a-thon, and we got 1,050 kids involved with walking around the track and we did at a carnival. I am so proud of my student government, my 50 kids just went above and beyond and we had a great time and we did a good job.

Everyone came together, not just as a school, not just as a clique or just friends, but we came together as one, to help out Kenya, Africa. So it’s really amazing to see what kids in Oakland Park, Florida can do to help kids half way around the world. It’s really amazing.

Benny Taveras is a student leader at Northeast High School and successfully encouraged many of his fellow students to participate in the initiative to build more schools in Kenya.

Being president of a couple of clubs at my school, I was able to motivate them and get all my students involved.

We donated money and really helped out. And just talking to other kids about how this would help out others, and being able to take a step back from our own lives and view from another perspective on how you can help kids. We are not an impoverished area, we’re going through an economic struggle, but still we have it better than most. So this gave us the opportunity to help out and it just gave everybody a chance.

This just gave them a chance to say “Hey I can do better. I am not in a bad situation, so I should be happy with what I got.” So this helped a lot of kids, and I am very proud of how Northeast (High School) pulled together to help out Kenya.

When we return, we’ll hear more from these benevolent Northeast High School students. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

How do we live our lives every single day and how we impact the lives of people in developing countries? How do we live our life so that we have a positive impact on the world around us?

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works on Supreme Master Television. Forty-five Broward County schools in Florida, USA recently raised nearly US$93,500 for the Free the Children charity, which is enough to build 11 schools for disadvantaged youngsters in Kenya.

I decided, okay I can probably take something bigger than I am. I’m going to help kids in Kenya, kids in Africa and basically try to see, if I can do this for them. Maybe this is just a step that I can also help other parts of the world, and donate some money to help build a school.

The top fundraising school, Northeast High School, collected US$11,000 for the cause. For being the star performer, the school was given the honor of sending four students to Kenya for 21 days to help build a school. The students chosen to go were Fara Ann Gonzalez, Oludare Nelson, Michael Range, and Benny Taveras.

We were very happy once we found out all four of us were going to Africa. We were very happy. I see it as an experience to help other people, just not, it’s a great experience for me, I get to see another part of the world, how everything is different, the culture, the diversity. But to be able to bring that back, that’s a real experience there, I can bring it back to Broward County, all the kids who helped out, I can just tell them what I see, just give them enough experience, as if they were there.

One penny, one dime a hundred dollars, no matter what it was, we were just excited that we were raising something for someone else. Doing it for someone else besides ourselves, it always comes from within, and you have to believe in the fact like we believed that we were going to raise $10,000 and build our own school. And if we didn’t believe that from the beginning, we never would have done it. So that’s always what you have to do, believe in yourself, and you’ll achieve it.

Some people think that they can’t do it by themselves, but the power to do things like this comes from team work, and comes from cooperative efforts. And that’s where things get done. So I believe that’s why it happened and why it was so successful.

I’m just happy to know that because I’ve already been given the chance to live a high school life with education, with the family, with a community that cares, I’m proud to say that now we can all give another community that chance, and I’m very happy and proud to be a part of that.

When we leave, we’re still going to come back with our experiences and show the world that Northeast (High School) is going to stride (forward), and in two years we are going to have a new crowd of students that are going to do the same thing. I see Northeast as a cornerstone to something bigger.

Learning of the caring efforts of the Northeast High School students to aid their peers in Kenya, Supreme Master Ching Hai donated an additional US$15, 000, or approximately CAD$15,300 to the cause, which our Association members presented to the school on her behalf.

In recognition of their leading roles in raising funds for Free the Children, the four students selected for Kenya trip and Rickards Middle School student Santiago Vazquez were given gift bags containing a selection of Master’s CDs and DVDs and her #1 international best-selling books “The Birds in My Life,” “The Dogs in My Life” and the “Noble Wilds.”

The Broward County School Board later sent Supreme Master Ching Hai a letter of appreciation. With Master’s permission, we would like to share the following excerpt from the letter.

Dear Supreme Master Ching Hai: On behalf of the students in the North Central Area, we would like to thank you for your most generous contribution of US$15,000 for our Free the Children project. Our children have learned so much this year by being a part of this wonderful cause. May God bless you for this wonderful opportunity of sharing our story with your viewers. Please know that your contribution will build a school, furnish it with desks, chairs, and supplies, and pay a teacher to educate these well-deserving youngsters.

Mother Teresa once said that, “We can do no great things, we can only do small things with great love.”

Our deep thanks go to the students of Northeast High School and those of other Broward County schools for striving their best to help their brothers and sisters in Kenya learn and grow. Our heartfelt appreciation also goes to Free the Children for its many global development initiatives and for its volunteers’ sincere consideration for the safety, welfare and future of vulnerable children across the world.

For their true and noble concern for the young ones, Supreme Master Ching Hai is honoring Free the Children with the Shining World Compassion Award and providing the organization with an additional loving contribution of US$10,000, or approximately CAD$10,200, to further their benevolent work.

For more details on Free the Children, please visit www.FreeTheChildren.com

Thank you for joining us today on Good People, Good Works. Up next is The World Around Us, after Noteworthy News. May all children forever be graced with Heaven’s protection.