Free The Children

We Charity

Current WE Charity logo.
Motto	Be The Change
Formation	1995
Type	International charity and educational partner
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Location	Work in less developed nations
Founder	Craig Kielburger, Marc Kielburger
Website	www.we.org

WE Charity, formerly known as Free The Children, is a worldwide development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger. The organization focuses on young people, with programs in Canada, the U.S. and U.K. for service learning and active citizenship, and international development projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America focused on children and education. The organization runs programs in approximately 10,000 schools in Canada, the U.S. and U.K. for service learning and active citizenship, with the aim of empowering youth to become socially engaged. The domestic youth empowerment work is funded by corporate sponsors and profits from the social enterprise, ME to WE. In 2013, Charity Intelligence Canada awarded Free The Children its highest four-star rating, along with an A for the organization's reporting of its "social results". In July 2016, Free The Children rebranded as WE Charity, part of WE.

Free The Children was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger when he was 12 years old. Craig was reading through the Toronto Star newspaper before school one day when he came across an article about the murder of a 12-year-old Pakistani boy named Iqbal Masih, a former child factory worker, who had spoken out against child labour.

Soon after, Kielburger established Free The Children with a group of his 12-year-old classmates. The organization was formed to raise awareness in North America about child labour and to encourage other children to get involved in the issue.

One of the group’s first actions was to collect 3,000 signatures on a petition to the prime minister of India, calling for the release of imprisoned child labour activist Kailash Satyarthi, who went on to win the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. The petition was sent in a shoe box wrapped in brown paper. On his eventual release, Satyarthi said, “It was one of the most powerful actions taken on my behalf, and for me, definitely the most memorable.”

Shortly afterward, Kielburger spoke at the convention of the Ontario Federation of Labour, where union representatives pledged $150,000 for a children’s rehabilitation centre in India. The Bal Ashram centre was built by Satyarthi.