As co-founders of the international charity and educational partner WE, Marc Kielburger and his brother Craig have inspired millions to take action to better their communities and the world. Social entrepreneurs, New York Times bestselling authors, columnists and human rights activists, the Kielburger brothers have built WE into a movement that includes WE Schools, WE Villages and WE Day. Their innovative social enterprise model, ME to WE, sustains the brothers’ charitable mission with socially-conscious products purchased by millions of consumers worldwide.
A Canadian born and raised, Marc is a dynamic speaker who believes marc kielburger the world is our classroom and that everyone has something to give. Marc is known for his ability to connect with audiences and motivate people to create change, using a blend of personal stories, humor, and insights from his work with communities around the globe.
The inspiration for Marc’s activism began at an early age, as he volunteered in Jamaica with a hospice for teenage mothers and a home for the elderly homeless who suffered from leprosy. As a student, he took his studies seriously, earning a magna cum laude degree from Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied law with a focus on human rights.
While the Kielburgers’ initial goal was to free children from bondage in developing countries, they realized that their charitable work needed to grow beyond raising funds and awareness for single projects. Seeing the need for a holistic development model, they launched WE Villages to empower impoverished communities to lift themselves out of poverty through sustainable self-reliance.
Today, WE has grown to include more than 20 global initiatives, impacting more than 4 million students every year. WE’s education programs include WE Schools, a groundbreaking approach to social-emotional learning that has revolutionized the way young people learn in North America and the United Kingdom. The annual WE Day event, which fills stadiums globally with young people engaged in their communities and the world, has reached an audience of over 2 million live participants.
WE has also partnered with over 30,000 schools, providing training and resources to help educators bring their students out of their screens and into the real world to learn about a variety of issues they care about. Additionally, WE’s innovative global development pillars, including food security and agriculture, are helping developing communities create self-sustaining income sources through their own business ideas.
Marc and Craig’s bold vision is that we can all be part of the solution to end child labour and other forms of oppression, through our everyday consumer choices. Their philanthropic endeavour has won them the Order of Canada, an Ashoka Fellowship and a spot on the World Economic Forum’s list of Young Global Leaders. They are also the recipients of 10 honorary doctorates and degrees for their global leadership in social change and education. Their success is the result of hard work and good intentions, but it’s also a testament to what can be achieved when you don’t let obstacles get in your way.