Children's advocate Kielburger wins global honour

Last Updated Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:20:35 EDT
CBC News

Craig Kielburger, who began his fight for the rights of children as a 12-year-old boy outraged by the death of an activist who opposed child labour in Pakistan, has won the "Children's Nobel Prize."

Swedish authorities announced on Tuesday that the 23-year-old, who lives in Thornhill, Ont., had been awarded the 2006 World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.

Annual winners are chosen by a vote of nearly four million young people from around the globe.

Past winners have included former South African president Nelson Mandela, former UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy and Joseph Stiglitz, who got the 2001 Nobel in economics.
Kielburger is receiving the prize as a result of his work with the charity he founded back in 1995, Free the Children.

The group runs programs in 45 countries aimed at releasing young people from poverty and exploitation through proper education.

"It's a great honour because it recognizes that Free the Children over the past 11 years has been engaging kids in Canada and the United States and around the world to fundraise to build 420 schools, to adopt villages, to send school and health supplies, and to go volunteer overseas," Kielburger told CBC News in an interview from Sweden on Tuesday.

"So for us, it's an extraordinary privilege."

Backed by Queen Silvia of Sweden and the Swedish government, the award will be formally awarded to Kielburger on Thursday. He will also receive a cheque for $40,000.

Kielburger has previously earned a long list of honours, including the Nelson Mandela Human Rights Award, the 2001 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and the Roosevelt Freedom Award.

The Ontario man's fight for children's rights began in April 1995, when Kielburger read a newspaper story about the shooting death of Iqbal Masih.

The Pakistani boy was a former child labourer who had begun speaking out against the poor treatment of young workers in his country.

Masih later became a posthumous winner of the World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.