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!

Amiable viewers, welcome to Good People, Good Works. Today we are delighted to introduce 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.

It all started when Craig, only 12 years old at the time, came across an article in a Canadian newspaper. The story was about the sad passing of Iqbal Masih, also 12, who escaped forced child labor at age nine and went on to become a leader of a campaign to end this abhorrent practice.

Craig was moved to the depths of his heart and truly felt that he had to do something to help the vulnerable children of the world. The next morning, Craig went to school and asked his classmates if any of them wished to join him in carrying on Iqbal’s mission. Eleven students immediately raised their hands and Free the Children was born.

My friends and I have started an organization called Free the Children, a youth group mainly made up of young people, between 10 and 16 years of age. And the purpose of our group is not only to free children from exploitation and abuse, but also to free children from the idea that they are powerless, and that they have no role to play in today’s society.

To see how he and the others could best aid those who Iqbal sought to protect, Craig decided to go and meet face-to-face with child laborers in different South Asian nations.

When Craig Kielburger was only twelve, he decided to take a seven week trip to South Asia. It was a journey that would have important consequences for the rest of his life.

Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to travel through five countries in South Asia and I’ve met many children who are suffering, children who are living on the streets of some of the world’s largest cities. I’ve met children sold as bonded laborers working 12 to 16 hours a day in the carpet industry. These children have no vote, no voice, and no political clout. Many of them are subjected to some of the most inhuman forms of exploitation.

I certainly knew nothing about the world, in which millions of children my age work long hours in conditions approaching slavery each day. And my question is, “Are all children created equal? And if child labor is wrong for a white middle class child in North America, then why is it any different for a girl in Thailand or born in Brazil?”

While in South Asia, Craig met with then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who also happened to be in the region at the time, to discuss child labor. After returning to Canada, Craig, his brother Marc, and the Free the Children team started visiting schools and churches and contacting prominent political and business leaders to raise awareness of global child inequality.

Through the unwavering dedication of its volunteers, Free the Children has become one of the world’s largest networks of children helping children. It has evolved from a small office in Craig’s living room into an international development and youth empowerment organization that has brought constructive changes to the lives of tens of thousands of underprivileged youngsters.

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.

Another wonderful initiative of Free the Children is the Adopt a Village program which operates in Kenya, China, India, Sierra Leone, Ecuador and Sri Lanka. Adopt a Village has several components including teaching disadvantaged women job skills so they can become economically self-sufficient.

With the additional income, the 30,000 women participants are now better able to care for their families and their children are more likely to attend school rather than work. Building schools, enhancing access to clean drinking water and health care services are other important parts of the program.

The organization has won a number of prestigious awards, including the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (also known as the Children’s Nobel Prize) and the Human Rights Award from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. Marc and Craig Kielburger are recipients of The Order of Canada which is given by the Canadian government for outstanding achievement and service to Canada or to humanity at large. Now let’s meet some of the beneficiaries of a Free the Children project in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Since the new school rooms were built by Free the Children, the children are more eager to learn, and the children have got better facilities. We enjoy teaching here very much. And so definitely the school will be beneficial for the children and the village.

The new school looks very good.

In the new school a nice breeze comes.

There is also light. I even like the color of the school.

I really like studying in school.

I like my teacher a lot.

I made new friends in my new school.

I have a lot of fun at school.

After these brief messages, we’ll find out more about the compassionate work of Free the Children. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

I am changing from “me” to “we.”

I can make a change in this world.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works. Today’s show features Free the Children a caring charity founded in 1995 by two Canadian brothers, Craig and Marc Kielburger to better the lives of young people in need across the globe. Schools constructed by the organization in the Kono District of Sierra Leone are giving hope to many youngsters and the leaders of the community.

I really feel good about Free the Children Primary (School) in Kono. The parents, they are thankful to this school because the situation is now changing gradually. The children are improving.

I like going to school because I learn many things about my future, my country and even the world.

It’s given me more understanding, more knowledge, and more wisdom.

When I finish school, I would like to do computer science.

I would like to be the president.

I would like to be a bank manager.

I would like to be a doctor.

The teachers care for them, they teach them as their own children, and the whole program takes an interest in them.

It’s giving the children the sense of what it means to be good citizen, to be a caring person, to know that they have rights, but others have rights as well.

And to learn to live in peace in a community.

I have hope for them because they are in school, they are preparing themselves now.

The United Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organization estimate that nearly a billion people lack access to safe water and 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation. Adequate sanitation is defined as having a sanitary facility that ensures hygienic separation of human waste from human contact. Globally, one child under the age of five dies from a waterborne disease every 20 seconds, with 43% of all water-related deaths due to diarrhea.

Globally over one million people now have better access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities thanks to Free the Children. In various regions in China, the group has installed direct water piping, toilets, and hand washing stations. In Sri Lanka and Kenya, they have drilled water wells.

The excitement is incredibly high as the community is gathered. They are on the verge of striking water here at the aquifer. They are drilling 200 meters deep in order to bring a supply of clean drinking water to this community in the South Mara region of Kenya.

So many communities like this one have benefited from Free the Children’s water catchment programs and well programs, thanks to your support. It ensures a source of clean water not only for the health and wellbeing of the families, but also to ensure that girls don’t have to walk a far distance in order to go to school. As you can see, as they strike the reservoir… as you can see they have struck the reservoir!

Free the Children has also partnered with internationally renowned charitable groups such as Oprah’s Angel Network that is run by Oprah Winfrey, a highly popular television talk show host in the US.

I would like to commit to building 100 schools around the world. One hundred schools.

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. Students at Northeast High School raised US$11,000 – the highest amount of all participating schools.

Hi, my name is Jonathan Williams and I am the proud principal of Northeast High School.

The project for Northeast was twofold. We saw it as a challenge for our children, an opportunity for them to go beyond themselves. What was most inspiring for us is that our children took on the initiative even in spite of what challenges they may have had themselves.

Thirteen year old Santiago Vazquez of Rickards Middle School shares how every penny counts when it comes to helping the others.

It did basically start off as “Well I only have a dollar now, so I’ll put it in,” and then my friends would (say) “Hey, well, I have two dollars.” We were doing it for a good cause; we were just trying to help build the school and having a little fun with it too.

It doesn’t take much for one person to change the world; Education is important. It’s all basically to help those kids who haven’t had an education. So basically anyone can help anyone.

Next Sunday on Good People, Good Works, we’ll learn more about the superb efforts of the Florida, USA students to help underprivileged youngsters in Kenya and of Supreme Master Ching Hai’s contribution to the cause. Our warmest appreciation goes to Craig and Marc Kielburger and all Free the Children volunteers for their altruistic spirit and ongoing dedication to making a real change in our world.

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 across the world know only laughter and happiness.

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.