I remember meeting Craig Kielburger at the TED conference many years ago. He was in his early twenties and had single handedly made charity ‘cool’ with his Free The Children organization. He was both articulate and passionate in a way that made you want to believe, and the cause (eliminating child labor) was clearly a fight worth fighting. He had started this particular revolution at age twelve when he delivered a precociously brilliant speech that went viral and sent him on a path towards global celebrity. But the more famous Craig, and later his older brother Mark, became the less authenticate it all seemed. The brothers traveled the world hobnobbing with pop stars, actors, diplomats, and seemed to lose the narrative at some point.
I had lost track of the story, and the brothers, until stumbling upon this podcast last week. It turns out that over time saving the world’s children had become a kind of empty facade for the ‘for profit’ companies that had become the behind the scenes focus and wealth creators for the Kielburgers. The behind the scenes revealed in this six episode story will inspire a level of cynicism about this younger, seemingly more idealistic generation than already exists. This is a powerful story about good intentions gone bad, greed, celebrity, and the fickle nature of our society.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-white-saviors/id1579997111