Who is Craig?

 

 

   Craig was a normal 12 year old boy until he heard about Iqbal's death in an article. The article talked about his life and his death. Then he wanted to make a difference-finish what Iqbal started. Craig was also 12 years old when Iqbal died. At age 14 he was interviewed by NI (New Internationalist) the magazine. By the time he got interviewed he had started the organization called Free The Children. He started looking at the similarities and differences between himself and Iqbal. This is what he told NI: "We were the same age. I could imagine Iqbal, I could imagine his dreams were the same-the article said that he wanted to become a lawyer and how he hoped to use that to free children. It talked about how he loved school and spoke about some of the things that he did when he was freed. But the big things that shocked me were the differences. I'd always thought, well slavery, bonded labor, it's something out of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-it's been abolished, it no longer exists."

      Craig gets interviewed

   Before Craig got interviewed by NI he started researching child labor. And after he thought he found enough information he went to his class and told them about child labor and then asked "This is what I want to do-who wants to help?" At first it started out as a group of 20 kids but later on it expanded to groups around the world who wanted to help Craig finish Iqbal's dream. When Craig first got interviewed by NI he was asked "Do you think Iqbal was murdered by the people in the carpet industry? Because he spoke out against them?" and he just told them what he thought:

"His death is a mystery, but whoever he was murdered by, it doesn't matter. It was what he spoke up for that was important-he was an advocate against child labor who started to take action in his own country."

   Craig's struggles

   One of the biggest problems for Craig and his group was that some adults didn’t take the kids seriously. Craig told NI: "The single biggest problem we've had is adults who will not take us seriously, who think that because we are young we will oversimplify the issue of child labor and not do our research. Many of our members are as young as nine or ten years old but we do our research as well as taking action."