Hey everyone! As you read, last week I focused on a specific article that we have been reading in my ASTU class. This week though, I want to go back to the question that all three of my professors in the CAP program have asked: What is a global citizen? We were asked to post a 50-word response to this question and following that, we had a group lecture with all of the CAP students in the Global Citizen stream along with our professors to discuss this question. For me, this was a challenging task. Some of you are probably wondering why I’m complaining about a 50-word response when I’m going to be eventually writing 20 page papers. There are many aspects of a global citizen, so it was difficult to pick and choose what I wanted to include in my response. Like I always do when I’m stumped, I went to my best friend Google and typed in “what is a global citizen?” As I was typing, Craig Kielburger’s name popped up. I clicked on his name and as I was reading some of the pages, I realized that he is a great example of a global citizen.
For those of you who don’t know, Craig Kielburger is the co-founder of the international charity Free the Children as well as Me to We, a social enterprise. When Kielburger was just 12 years old, he was reading the newspaper when he came across a story about a 12-year-old boy from Pakistan, who had been a child slave and was murdered because he spoke up for human rights. At that moment, Kielburger realized that he needed to do something to make a change, and Free the Children was born.
When I think about what a global citizen is, I think of someone who travels the world and who is aware of issues within their own community as well as global issues. I think of words such as impact and change. These words are what inspired Kielburger to create Free the Children. When I was in middle school, I joined the Free the Children club, which was one of the highlights of my 3 years there! We put on events to raise money for building schools in places such as Kenya and we also went to the event We Day, also co-founded by Keilburger. If you’ve never heard of this event, “We Day is a celebration of youth making a difference in their local and global communities” (http://www.weday.com). We Day was an over the top inspiring event and when I look back at it now, I realize that I was surrounded by a whole stadium of global citizens seeking to make the world we live in a better place. Keilburger’s speech helped me to define what a global citizen is. I now realize that you don’t have to travel all over the globe to be considered a global citizen. It is possible to make changes to communities that are struggling by spreading the word and getting others around you to have the same goal of spotting problems and seeking change to fix them. Being a global citizen also means being determined. This is a clear trait of Keilburger, who was only 12 when he decided he needed to make a change. We Day was an awesome experience and I suggest that you check it out here! Anyways, that is all for this week, thanks for reading!