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WE Charity
WE Charity (French: Organisme UNIS), formerly known as Free the Children (French: Enfants Entraide), is an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. The organization implemented development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, focusing on education, water, health, food and economic opportunity. It also runs domestic programming for young people in Canada, the US and UK, promoting corporate-sponsored service learning and active citizenship. Charity Intelligence, a registered Canadian charity that rates over 750 Canadian charities, rates the "demonstrated impact" per dollar of We Charity as "Low" and has issued a "Donor Advisory" due to We Charity replacing most of its board of directors in 2020.
WE Charity is related to other ventures from the Kielburgers, including the for-profit Me to We, which was the title of a 2004 book by Craig and Marc Kielburger, and We Day, a series of large-scale motivational events held in 17 cities throughout the school year.
A scandal arose when the charity was selected by the Canadian federal government in 2020 for a $43.53 million contract to oversee $900 million for the Canada Student Service Grant, but the decision was reversed after ties between the organization and the Trudeau family, including payments to Justin Trudeau's wife, brother, and mother, as well as the family of former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, were called into question.
On 9 September 2020, We Charity announced that it was winding down its operations in Canada and selling its assets to establish an endowment that will help sustain ongoing We Charity projects around the world. The announcement also explains that the existing board of directors, the existing Canadian employees, and the Kielburgers would leave We Charity Canada.
In November 2020, a Wikipedia investigation found the Wikipedia article for the WE Charity was illicitly modified by "paid agents who used deceptive online identities" from Israeli online reputation management service Percepto International. The Chief Operations Officer for WE Charity, Scott Baker, denied involvement with the sockpuppetry and Percepto declined to comment.
In November 2021, CBC News reported that the WE Charity misled donors about the school they built in Kenya. "Far fewer schools were built than were funded by donors, a fact that leaked internal WE documents show was co-ordinated at the highest levels of the organization." WE Charity denied the report. CBC reported that, likely in a "co-ordinated campaign", a large number of groups and individuals wrote letters and emails discouraging them from reporting the story in the months leading up to its publication. The messages largely came from educators and charities, and included a full-page advertisement printed in several newspapers in September that argued that the news report was not in the public interest. On 8 February 2022, WE Charity filed a defamation lawsuit over the report in District of Columbia District Court.
WE Charity (formerly Free the Children) was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger when he was 12 years old. Kielburger was reading through the Toronto Star 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 in Pakistan's carpet trade who had spoken out against child labour and received death threats for his activism. According to Masih's account, he was sold by his parents to a factory at the age of 4 and worked there until he was 10, much of the time shackled to a loom. After the murder of Masih led to an international outcry, Pakistani police said that the killing was not connected to his anti-child labour activism.
One of the Free the Children'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. The petition was sent in a shoe box wrapped in brown paper. Satyarthi was eventually released. After he was freed, 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 rehabilitation centre in India. The Bal Ashram centre was built by Satyarthi.
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WE Charity
WE Charity (French: Organisme UNIS), formerly known as Free the Children (French: Enfants Entraide), is an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. The organization implemented development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, focusing on education, water, health, food and economic opportunity. It also runs domestic programming for young people in Canada, the US and UK, promoting corporate-sponsored service learning and active citizenship. Charity Intelligence, a registered Canadian charity that rates over 750 Canadian charities, rates the "demonstrated impact" per dollar of We Charity as "Low" and has issued a "Donor Advisory" due to We Charity replacing most of its board of directors in 2020.
WE Charity is related to other ventures from the Kielburgers, including the for-profit Me to We, which was the title of a 2004 book by Craig and Marc Kielburger, and We Day, a series of large-scale motivational events held in 17 cities throughout the school year.
A scandal arose when the charity was selected by the Canadian federal government in 2020 for a $43.53 million contract to oversee $900 million for the Canada Student Service Grant, but the decision was reversed after ties between the organization and the Trudeau family, including payments to Justin Trudeau's wife, brother, and mother, as well as the family of former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, were called into question.
On 9 September 2020, We Charity announced that it was winding down its operations in Canada and selling its assets to establish an endowment that will help sustain ongoing We Charity projects around the world. The announcement also explains that the existing board of directors, the existing Canadian employees, and the Kielburgers would leave We Charity Canada.
In November 2020, a Wikipedia investigation found the Wikipedia article for the WE Charity was illicitly modified by "paid agents who used deceptive online identities" from Israeli online reputation management service Percepto International. The Chief Operations Officer for WE Charity, Scott Baker, denied involvement with the sockpuppetry and Percepto declined to comment.
In November 2021, CBC News reported that the WE Charity misled donors about the school they built in Kenya. "Far fewer schools were built than were funded by donors, a fact that leaked internal WE documents show was co-ordinated at the highest levels of the organization." WE Charity denied the report. CBC reported that, likely in a "co-ordinated campaign", a large number of groups and individuals wrote letters and emails discouraging them from reporting the story in the months leading up to its publication. The messages largely came from educators and charities, and included a full-page advertisement printed in several newspapers in September that argued that the news report was not in the public interest. On 8 February 2022, WE Charity filed a defamation lawsuit over the report in District of Columbia District Court.
WE Charity (formerly Free the Children) was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger when he was 12 years old. Kielburger was reading through the Toronto Star 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 in Pakistan's carpet trade who had spoken out against child labour and received death threats for his activism. According to Masih's account, he was sold by his parents to a factory at the age of 4 and worked there until he was 10, much of the time shackled to a loom. After the murder of Masih led to an international outcry, Pakistani police said that the killing was not connected to his anti-child labour activism.
One of the Free the Children'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. The petition was sent in a shoe box wrapped in brown paper. Satyarthi was eventually released. After he was freed, 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 rehabilitation centre in India. The Bal Ashram centre was built by Satyarthi.
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