SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-07-10
See also:
[2020-07-10] Justin Trudeau faces calls for criminal investigation into family's charity links. WE Charity, which was awarded multimillion-dollar government contract, paid PM's mother and wife for appearances at events.
[2020-07-08] Racialized former WE employees accused charity of oppressive incidents
We Charity (stylized as WE Charity), formerly known as Free the Children, is an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. The organization implements 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 U.S. and U.K., promoting service learning and active citizenship.
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.
The organization has received high ratings from independent third-party charitable sector evaluators including Charity Navigator,, Charity Intelligence Canada, and GuideStar. The charity was selected by the federal government in 2020 for a $19.5 million contract to oversee $900 million for the Canada Student Service Grant, but the decision was reversed after close ties between the organization and the Trudeau family were called into question. The organization's internal culture has also been criticized by employees over issues of control and secrecy.
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. However, both local police and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan determined that Masih's murder was unconnected to his anti-child labour activism and the carpet industry. There are also reports that Masih was 19 and not 12 at the time.
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. 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 rehabilitation centre in India. The Bal Ashram centre was built by Satyarthi.
In December 1995, Kielburger embarked on an eight-week tour of South Asia to meet child labourers and hear their stories first-hand. It was on that trip that Kielburger had a meeting with then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, in which Kielburger convinced Chrétien to take a public stand against child slavery. In 1999, he wrote Free the Children, a book detailing his trip to South Asia and the founding of his charity.
Free the Children initially fundraised for organizations that raided factories and freed children from forced labour situations. When it became clear that the rescued children were being resold by their impoverished families, the organization changed its approach and started building schools in Nicaragua, Kenya, Ecuador and India. The organization later evolved an international development model with projects related to education, water, health care, food security and income generation.
In 2007, at age 25, Craig Kielburger was inducted into the Order of Canada. the second-youngest Canadian ever to receive the honour. His brother Marc Kielburger was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2010. Ernst & Young and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, presented the 2008 Social Entrepreneur Of The Year award in Canada to the Kielburgers for their work with Free the Children.
Free the Children rebranded as WE Charity in 2016. The charity runs domestic programs for young people in Canada, the US and the UK, and international development programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.In September 2017, the organization moved to a new headquarters in downtown Toronto, named "WE Global Learning Centre." The Centre features a theatre, broadcast studio, and an open concept design. The official opening on September 27, 2017 was attended by international figures including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and actor and activist Mia Farrow.
Students take part in activities such as food and clothing drives for the homeless, anti-bullying campaigns, and fundraisers to build water projects, and schools in countries where WE Charity works, including Kenya, India, and Ecuador. They also raise money for other organizations and causes, such as children's hospitals, the Terry Fox Run9, and women's shelters.
WE Charity partners with the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative to deliver the "We Stand Together" campaign, promoted as strengthening ties between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada by emphasizing Canadian Indigenous history in classrooms.
In August 2019, the federal government announced that it was giving $3 million to WE Social Entrepreneurs initiative, aiming to created 200 "youth-led enterprises" that address social issues at a community level.
In July 2019, the organization opened its first WE College in Narok County, Kenya. It offered a range of courses to girls of Maasai Mara community. Notable attendees of the opening ceremony included former Prime Minister of Canada Kim Campbell, First Lady of Kenya Margaret Kenyatta, and Margaret Trudeau.
Main article: We Day
WE Charity holds an annual series of stadium-sized youth empowerment events called "WE Day," bringing together tens of thousands of students and educators as part of the yearlong WE Schools service learning program. WE Day has featured notable speakers, such as Al Gore, Elie Wiesel, Martin Luther King III, Kofi Annan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and performers, such as Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Lilly Singh, Jennifer Hudson, Liam Payne, Iskra Lawrence, and Naomi Campbell. Tickets are not purchased, but are instead earned by students through service in a local or a global cause. The first WE Day was staged in Toronto in October 2007. The program has since expanded into 17 cities, including London, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles.
WE Charity is governed by separate Boards of Directors in Canada, the US and UK. The Canadian Board Chairwoman was Michelle Douglas, a Canadian human rights activist. She resigned in March 2020, at the same time as many other board members. Board members are drawn from government, academia, business, media and charitable sectors.
The charity has come under criticism for its treatment of employees and volunteers. One former WE manager in 2009 wrote in his exit email about worker safety concerns and WE's "culture of guilt," adding "I'm tired of being made to feel guilty about asking to be paid a living wage, because that money would otherwise go to 'educate starving students in Africa'." Former employees have been prevented from speaking about the organization because of non-disclosure agreements and described being in a culture of fear when challenging internal decisions. The organization also apologized to its BIPOC [black, indigenous, and people of color] employees in 2020 after a Black former employee and motivational speaker spoke out about having her anti-racism speech rewritten and watered down by a mostly-white leadership team.
The charity received $120,000 in at least five federal government contracts and $5.2 million in grants and contributions under the Justin Trudeau government from 2017 to 2020. In 2020, the federal cabinet selected WE to administer a payment program for the Canada Student Service Grant program, a $900 million volunteer program, for a contract worth $19.5 million. The decision raised questions about the charity's ties to the Trudeau family and why the federal public service could not administer the funds as part of their regular mandate. Conservative MP Dan Albas raised concerns about accountability, stating that the private charity could not be audited by the Auditor General of Canada. Co-founder of Democracy Watch Duff Conacher expressed concerns over the relatively sudden and large amount of funding for an organization for which the Prime Minister's wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, was a high-ranking volunteer. Volunteer Canada, a national volunteer group, rejected the fund saying that it would pay volunteers less than minimum wage and would be against the law. The organization's CEO called the program a way to hire students at a discount rate while calling the program a "grant." The charity itself offered 450 virtual volunteering positions as part of the program, further raising concerns of a conflict of interest.
Prime Minister Trudeau defended the government's initial decision to have WE Charity administer the program, saying that the organization's networks across the country made it the right choice and WE Charity itself would not profit from the contract. On July 3, 2020, Liberal Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, Bardish Chagger, announced that WE Charity would no longer be administering the Canada Student Service Grant program, per a "mutually agreed upon decision" between the organization and the federal government, and that WE Charity would return any funds that had been received. While it was initially characterized as a mutual decision, Trudeau later said that it was a decision made by WE that the government supported. In a statement, WE founders Craig and Marc Kielburger confirmed that the decision to cancel the contract was mutual between their organization and the federal government, saying that while they regretted the controversy that threatened to overshadow the program's intent, they felt the government had entered into the contract in good faith, and that they "wish the program all the best of continued success."
On July 3, 2020, the Ethics Commissioner announced an investigation into Trudeau and the decision to have WE Charity administer the summer student grant program. Later it was revealed that Trudeau's mother Margaret and brother Alexandre received $250,000 and $32,000, respectively, for speaking at WE events between 2016 and 2020. Two of the daughters of Minister of Finance Bill Morneau were also found to have worked for the charity, one in a paid contract position, and the other as an unpaid volunteer; Morneau did not recuse himself from the cabinet decision for the contract.
Return to BuriedTruth.com