Mark Kielburger, Free the Children, Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, Session 4

Co-Founder of "Free the Children," an organization that works to free children from child labor slavery as well as adopting villages and building schools, etc. http://www.freethechildren.com/

Free The Children believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change. We are a charity andeducational partner that empowers youth to remove barriers that prevent them from being active local and global citizens. Our domestic programseducate, engage and empower hundreds of thousands of youth in North America and the UK. Our international projects, led by our holistic and sustainable Adopt a Village model, has brought over 650 schools andschool rooms to youth and provided clean water, health care and sanitation to one million people around the world, freeing children and their families from the cycle of poverty.

They are doing all kinds of things for kids in local villages by building schools, providing clean water because the girls cannot go to school because they have to spend the whole day getting water, etc. They engage children when they are very young in the West to be advocates for children in the developing world and they help these villages become self-sustaining. Mark was asked the question: What type of legacy do you want to leave?This question turned him around and got him moving. They don't sell anything tangible. They sell hope. They allow people to find meaning, gratitude, community, and a legacy. Where do we find meaning in life? How do we express gratitude? Why community and what does it look like? How do you develop a legacy?
500 full-time employees with 16 branches arund the world. They do "WE Day" 8 times with 20,000 kids in stadium across the country. www.facebook.com/wedayThey have 2 leaders, Mark and his brother. They are able to do this because of two things: Communication and Alignment. Organizations fail to scale up because they do not communicate down. Organizations that are not growing often fail to communicate - people in the organization only get 10% of what the leadership is saying. You need to constantly communicate and align. Show, not tell. Do something. Be a shameless idealist. Translate you ideals to action. Identify gifts and match them opportunities and need. Take young people out of their comfort zone and take them to places where they can do the work to make a difference. 1 billion young people on earth between the ages of 12-18, with 90% of them in developing countries. We need to engage our young people now, because they don't just turn 18 and develop a social conscience. Mother Theresa said to them when they met her year's ago: "Remember boys, we can do no great thing, but we can do small things with great love."We are the generation that we have been waiting for. Have these conversations with young people now to encourage them to change the world.