Time flies when you're changing the world.
Craig Kielburger
We've found that service learning builds life skills, leadership and a sense of global citizenship that makes helping a lifelong habit.
Some say there is no uniquely Canadian identity, that our multicultural fabric is too varied to establish a common thread. I disagree. My grandfather came to a country that celebrates diversity, embraces strife with compassion and respects selfless idealism.
When I was 12, I read about Iqbal Masih, a child slave who escaped the carpet factory where he'd been chained to a loom since the age of four. Iqbal led an anti-child labor crusade that made global headlines, including the one that first caught my attention.
When you give a child the opportunity to learn, they always give back.
Distance and difference become irrelevant as our technology connects youth from Vancouver, Toronto, Iqaluit, Attawapiskat, Delhi, Nairobi - anywhere - to learn from and about each other.
My own service started when I was 12, with the small charity I launched with 12 friends. Twenty years later, millions have joined our ranks - educators, business leaders and prominent Canadians.
But while Nelson Mandela's work is sadly done, his dream is unfinished.
I started calling anti-child labor organizations, asking how I could help. They told me a kid couldn't make any difference, so I decided to start a movement for young people to fight child labor, and to prove them wrong.
We would love to see Canadian federal and provincial governments establish a new business entity class like the CIC or L3C for social enterprises. Our governments should also offer tax incentives to entice more entrepreneurs into the social economy, and encourage foundations and impact investors to put their capital into social enterprises.
My grandfather didn't come to Canada for his own sake. He didn't leave behind his family to cross the Atlantic and be knocked to the canvas. He came here so that his son, my father, would have a better life.
In the We Connectivity Hub, three global classrooms fitted with Skype technology from Microsoft will bring workshops, leadership training and mentorship to the most remote and unreachable rural communities in Canada - especially Indigenous communities - without having to fly thousands of kilometres to an urban centre.
Service learning connects classroom studies to real-world issues, with hands-on activities and problem solving. Youth can study biology and ecology by testing the water in their own community; or learn about statistics, calculating the food supply and usage at the local food bank.
Any child who dreams to do good in the world has Mandela as his hero. I own a dog-eared copy of 'Long Walk to Freedom' and visited Robben Island, where he was imprisoned, to stand in a cell only as wide as an arm's span.
Many say that a man comes along with the moral courage of Nelson Mandela once in a lifetime. He was an extraordinary man who paid a great sacrifice for his beliefs, then led a nation from the prospect of civil war to reconciliation.
My grandfather came to Canada from Romania just before the Second World War, already in debt after buying his boat ticket on borrowed dime.
There's no magic bullet to end poverty in the world. But if you could, the closest thing to it would be basic primary education.
I met children who want to be social workers, lawyers, doctors, community activists and soldiers so they can help their people rise above still difficult economic circumstances.
Sometimes it takes a child to raise a village - or to take down an injustice.
And in rural communities we've worked alongside, Haitians are doing far more than merely recovering from the earthquake. Many are creating long-term sustainable change.
Success to us is not just a girl overseas going to school - but also leading her village to a better future.
Despite the value to Canada, our country lags in competitiveness in the global social economy.
We learned that kicking down doors to free children from carpet factories isn't enough to stop child labour - we had to tackle the underlying poverty in which their families lived, through education.
The nature of education fundamentally has not changed in a century - and I say this as someone whose parents are both teachers.
We want to end poverty and protect our environment. But we think the most efficient way of achieving that is to change the way a generation of young people is educated. That's how you'll shift the world.
Most organizations see young people as problems to be solved. We see young people as problem-solvers.
We've set up groups in schools across North America. They apply and receive a curriculum about different issues facing the world - from environment to health to sustainability. Then, the students take actions from fundraisers to awareness raisers, and some of them even go overseas and volunteer.
When you stand amid the unending vistas of Kenya's Maasai Mara, it's impossible to remain focused inward. Your mind expands to the distant horizons.
The children of Qunu stood for hours on the side of a brand new stretch of highway as they waited for the hearse carrying Nelson Mandela to come into view.
In South Africa, there is only one name that every child knows, every leader invokes, and every grandparent tells their grandchildren about. Madiba.
There may never be another Madiba. But instead of waiting for the next Nelson Mandela to emerge, those whom he universally inspired are now looking to themselves and each other to build their own dream together.
People in the business world lament economic resources wasted on unsustainable development projects and what they see as activists' naive failure to grasp the importance of building strong economies.
While governments are not off the hook, the charity world needs to innovate and find new ways to attract outside investment to boost our social productivity.
