Looking at a photograph, what do I see?

 

By Colleen Kelly, Age 12
Quincy, MA

My soft hand caressed the faces of poor, working children in photographs. Staring at their faces, feeling their pain, adrenaline rushed through my body. I was angry. These photos revealed lives without childhoods. The pain and sorrow I felt for the working child would impact my life tremendously. I was sitting in a middle school classroom looking at these photographs and wondering what I could do. My wise teacher came up to me with a suggestion to go to a Friday “end child labor” meeting.

At first that amused me because, I mean, me, a regular person, make a difference? I went to a meeting on a Friday. I wasn’t the most enthusiastic about it, but I went. Then, my teacher brought all the new members down the hall to a little display case. I always thought that case was a TV or something. I didn’t really care about it. The teacher started to tell a story of a little boy whose name was Iqbal. Iqbal, age four, was sold into child labor in a carpet factory because his family had debts to pay. When he worked in the carpet factory, he barely had enough food to survive each night. Finally, one day at the age of ten, he escaped. He finally got out. Eventually he was able to share his message about what he went through in the factory.

A few months later Iqbal received the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston. All the kids were touched by Iqbal’s story. We now wanted to do something to help working children like Iqbal. The teacher continued by telling us that when Iqbal returned to Pakistan, he was riding his bike and he was shot and killed. At this moment, goose bumps were shivering through my body. I think it was the same for the rest of the kids. The teacher took a long pause and pointed to the display case that was to the left. He said that inside this box was a carpet that Iqbal had made. Iqbal actually visited our school the day before he accepted the Reebok award. We were all shocked. The teacher kept talking about Iqbal and what Broad Meadows did to help. The students back then wanted to do something, so they decided to start a school in Pakistan in Iqbal’s honor. The teacher said, “we can’t do this!” However, those words are not in the vocabulary of Broad Meadows students. They raised over 147,000 dollars and built a school in Pakistan! The teacher was amazed; he never thought that twelve-year-olds could do it. When he finished the long story, we went back to the classroom. It hit me like a ton of bricks why all these young people are here at the meeting. They heard the story; they felt the same compassion I did when I heard the story. Now I finally understand what kids my age can do to help the tens of millions of children like Iqbal all over the world.

Compassion for the working child is basically tough love to all of us who attend “end child labor” meetings. For us, it’s not just having compassion for the working child, it’s actually doing something to help working children help themselves.