Kielburger brothers turn 'self-help' on its head: older and wiser, the Kielburger brothers deepen their analysis of global problems. new book gives hope

Catholic New Times, Oct 24, 2004 by Ted Schmidt

"It only lives when you give it away"--Bruce Cockburn

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven."--Matt. 7:21

Ten years ago when Marc Kielburger was in his final year of high school in suburban Toronto, his eyes glazed over in boredom.

He was living the old Peggy Lee song 'Is that all there is?' His parents, Fred and Theresa, made a deal with him. Go to night school and get your remaining credits and you can do volunteer work in the day. That experience changed his life irrevocably.

Tutoring at-risk students in a nearby mall, Marc Kielburger soon discovered a world that rocked him to the core. Raised in a financially-secure, loving family he was not prepared to meet those others who were victims of parental neglect and societal abandonment.

Touched by their common humanity and dreams similar to his own, he began to share his many gifts with them. The experience made him question his own "charmed life" and set him on a path the results of which he could never have envisioned.

At university, Kielburger spent a year volunteering in Thailand, in the slums Of Bangkok where he tutored and worked in an AIDS hospice. As an AIDS victim died in his arms, he wept.

Today, Marc is 27-years-old, a Harvard grad, a Rhodes scholar and an Oxford-educated lawyer. In 1999, Marc founded Leaders Today, an organization providing leadership training to more than 250,000 youths. Profiled on CBC, CNN and Macleans, he was recently chosen as one of the top 40 leaders under the age of 40. Along with younger brother Craig, he has now written "Take Action and Take More Action."

Meanwhile Craig had drunk in Marc's stories around the dinner table and in 1995, at the age of 12, met his own burning bush in the pages of The Toronto Star

The headline read, "Battled child labour, boy, 12, murdered." Craig was stunned to read that a youngster his own age in Pakistan had been sold into slavery at four-years of age and was chained to a loom, while making carpets. The boy escaped this dungeon when he was 10-years-old, only to be captured and murdered two years later.

Fired up at this outrageous injustice, Craig took the problem to his grade seven classmates, and in his basement, Free the Children was born.

Within nine years, boosted by appearances on Oprah Winfrey, 60 Minutes, in Time magazine and other media, Free the Children has become the largest international network of children helping children in the world. In 35 countries it has built over 400 elementary schools, providing education for over 35,000 children. Craig is now in his third year of Peace and Conflict studies, "The idealistic wing of international relations," at university.

Turning self-help on its head

Sitting in their Cabbagetown office not far from CNT, the two brothers enter into easy banter about their latest project, "Me to We," a book that turns "self-help" on its head. Craig admits that they were advised to tone down some of their criticism about the phenomenon of "self-help" literature and the grandiose promises it makes to the unwary and unfulfilled. The same for the appalling nonsense one associates with motivational speakers.

"We found ourselves sitting on panels with people selling quick and easy solutions to life's struggles. The more we listened to them celebrate power and money, however, the more we began to see that their solutions conflicted with what we had witnessed in our service work, both at home and overseas."

It is obvious that the Kielburgers, given their advanced education and global travel have moved beyond the charity model. They have added a necessary toughness to the analyses of global structures and systems.

"Me to We" is a testimonial to the emerging critical consciousness of Marc and Craig. Their book is a tough -minded critique of an often self-indulgent "development" industry.

They begin by dissecting the egoism at the heart of Western culture--the focus on "getting ahead," "looking out for number one" and "helping yourself." In 1999, they point out, $588 million worth of self-help gospel,--arguably "the literature of our time"--was published. The end result of most of this thinking is obsessive individualism and happiness tied to material possessions. This mega industry, "self- focused and self-involved, ends in millions looking to help themselves often at the expense of others." Using a plethora of worldwide statistics on values and happiness, the brothers conclude that "We are riding the shopping cart down the road to nowhere."

It needn't be like this. They intersperse their trenchant analyses of consumerism and the spectator and bystander society resulting in vicarious living, with short bios of amazing people who have broken the chain of self-aggrandizement and offered powerful antidotes of altruism.

Some are well-known (Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Goodall), some are not. All are inspiring. The message: live your life as a socially conscious and responsible global citizen; see yourself as part of a larger community.