At the age of 12, child activist Craig Kielburger, began his extraordinary fight against child labour. He went to India to find out about the realities of children who are forced to work in the carpet trade. He confronted the Canadian Prime Minister and then he toured the world, speaking out wherever he could. The film explores the complex issue of working children, and looks at “Free The Children” – the movement Craig and his school friends founded. Shot in India, Brazil & the Philippines.
Director: Judy Jackson.
Stars: Craig Kielburger.
Important context for this film: Kielburger went on to found WE Charity, a notorious grift that would siphon tens of million dollars in public and private funding for spurious development projects in Africa. WE would be at the heart of a 2020 scandal that resulted in the fall of Finance Minister Bill Morneau when the Trudeau government turned over coordination of a nationwide volunteer effort to the charity during COVID lockdowns–with no oversight or competition for the contract, and despite clear conflicts of interest. This doc is an interesting look at the (possibly earnest) origins of someone whose overall influence on the nonprofit world has proven profoundly poisonous.
‘Regarding the film, it taught me a lot. I have never heard of the horror of Manila’s garbage dumps. I have heard they are big in Cairo, Mexico City, and Lagos. I learned about the sex trafficking there. I thought it was largely in Thailand. The visuals were good and clear.
I am a therapist, and did not like all the “young people can help out too,” messages. This seems to be a projection by adults of some purity on to youth. Their psyche, brain development and physique cannot bear such heavy load. (The cerebral cortex only finishes growth at the age of 23 — one of the reasons for not “trans-ing” kids when THEY are sure it’s what they need.).
I have been to India — Delhi and Calcutta, as in the movie — and I would certainly not send a twelve year old of mine there alone.
So it seems the two brothers are slender reeds who have missed some of their developmental input. That seems to be behind the first comment here, that came as a
shock after all the euphoria of the movie. They seem to not recognize easily enough the hucksters drawn to them: the Trudeau clan and the Israeli company that went in with WE. I remember the revulsion I felt when he blocked the truckers.
I could not follow the labyrinthine paths of the ethics committee and its apparently very dubious clearing of Trudeau, according to Wikipedia.
With Carl Jung, when children were brought to him with problems, he would say, “Let the child sit outside, I want to talk with the parents.” Psychically they are still in the emotional orbit of the parents.