Imagine This: You’re four years  old when your family sells you into slavery to the carpet industry for the equivalent of $12.00. You escape at age ten and want to help all the other child laborers by telling the world about child slavery. So what do you do?

 Who: You’re Iqbal Masih, a 10-year-old Pakistani boy

What: The Campaign for Children’s Rights

Where: Pakistan

When: You begin your campaign in 1992 at age 10.

This is the inspiring story of a 10-year-old Pakistani boy who speaks out against child slavery at the risk of his own life.

You’re born in Pakistan in 1982 and sold into slavery to a carpet factory by your family at age four because your family needs the money to pay for their eldest son’s wedding. You squat on the floor, often chained, before a carpet loom for twelve hours a day six days a week.

Your growth is stunted from lack of good nutrition, your back is curved from lack of exercise, your hands are gnarled from the repetitive work of tying thousands of knots every day, and your breathing is labored from the carpet dust you inhale all day long.

A Human Rights Organization, Bonded Labour Liberation Front, (BLLF) helps you “escape” at age 10 and you complete 6 years of school in 2 years. You also join the BLLF and begin speaking out against the carpet mills. You gain international attention, and eventually you begin making speeches around the world–talking about child labor and your life experiences.

One of the schools you visit in the United States in 1994 is the Broadmeadow Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts. The students there promise to help spread the word about child labor and child slavery and they keep their promise by establishing A School for Iqbac fund to fulfill your dream of building a school in Pakistan.

You win many awards and honors, including Reebok’s 1994 Human Rights Youth Action Award. While in the United States accepting the award, you’re nominated for ABC’s Person of the Week.”

Soon after receiving the award, you return to Pakistan where you’re murdered on Easter Sunday 1995 while riding a bicycle in your home village. No one knows who killed you, but there are assumptions that the “Carpet Mafia” was responsible because many carpet industries were losing a lot of business due to your speeches.

Today the students at the Broad Meadows Middle School continue to raise money for their School for Iqbal program and have raised enough money to build 8 schools around the world.

Thank you, Iqbal, for caring enough to make a difference!

Postscript: To find out more about the School for Iqbal Fund, visit http://mirrorimage.com/iqbal/

For More about Iqbal Masih:

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Igbal returned to Pakistan, knowing his life was in danger?

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

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