Newsletters 2013-14 Focus newsletter, [1] fall | Page 6

A
P R E N OA R I- N GN N ET U DSE NOT S DFI S T R I CLT I F E
P KA HE S PIN CH OL
OR

Northdale’s ‘Youth for Change’ making real-life difference for
children around the world

T

here’s no way a 12-year-old
Pakistani boy named Iqbal
Masih knew what his legacy
would become when he was killed
nearly 20 years ago.
But the boy’s story was splashed
across the pages of American newspapers the morning of April 19,
1995, inspiring things as big as
worldwide movements and service
organizations, to small things like an
annual mid-January lesson plan in a
Coon Rapids middle school.
Pam Zimba, an integrated language arts teacher at Northdale
Middle School who retired in June,
said she saw the story about Masih’s
death that morning 18 years ago and
his story really struck her.
“I just couldn’t turn away from
that face,” she said, looking at a picture of him that she has tacked to a
wall in her classroom.
Masih won international acclaim
in the 1990s for highlighting the
horrors of child labor in Pakistan.
For much of his life, he was a slavelaborer, bound to other children like
him, working 14 hour days, seven
days a week, in a carpet weaving factory. His parents sold him to the
owners of the factory to pay off a
debt. In 1993, at the age of 10, he
escaped and hooked up with a

Ontario, school, and created Free the
Children, which has turned into one
of the largest children’s rights
groups in the world.
“Those factory owners that were
upset by (Masih) thought they were
going to silence him,” Zimba said.
“But a teacher in Coon Rapids,
Minnesota, has a unit dedicated to
child labor because of that boy, and
another person in another country
has created one of the world’s largest
children’s rights groups—all because
they were inspired by this one little
boy. It’s amazing.”
And nearly 20 years later, with
Masih still serving as the primary
inspiration for both, the pathways of
Zimba’s class and Free the Children
crossed in a remarkable way. “An
amazing piece of serendipity,” Zimba
called it.
In January, around the time
Zimba’s child labor unit was heating
up, Free the Children provided
Northdale with a gift—a group of
youth ambassadors who provided
group presentations to the school,
talking about ways for children to
make changes in their communities.
Following that, the school had the
opportunity to apply for a Free the
Children leadership seminar. Zimba
said she asked her students if they
were interested—it
required an essay to be
written—and the answer
was a pretty emphatic yes.
But that’s when Zimba
says she got the surprise
of her teaching career.

human rights group fighting child
labor in Pakistan. But two years
later, after a trip to the United States
to receive an award for his efforts in
freeing child laborers, he was
gunned down while riding his bike
with friends.
“I was reading about his murder
and at the time my own kids were 10
and 13. I go to work and I’m teaching 11, 12 and 13 year olds,” she said.
“I didn’t even know kids could be
sold into slavery.”
Inspired to do something, Zimba
took a year to research and develop
her lesson plan, and since 1997,
she’s been teaching about child labor
and inspiring students to act.

Paths Cross
Meanwhile in Canada, on that
same spring day in 1995, a 12-yearold boy named Craig Kielburger was
flipping through his morning newspaper when he saw the story of
Masih—the same one Zimba saw.
Kielburger felt he, too, needed to
do something. He gathered together
a small group of his seventh grade
classmates from his Thornhill,

P A G E

6

Two of her seventh
graders—Abraham Joseph
and Tyler Young—wrote
about how they had created a student activist group called
Youth For Change just a month earlier. Zimba’s child labor unit, the boys
said, inspired the group.
“I was absolutely blown away,”
she said, choking up. “The boys—
they did this all on their own. It’s
totally self-directed.”
Joseph said Northdale’s Youth
For Change group was born soon
after the child labor unit began, following a conversation between he
and his friend, Young.
“It hit me hard, and we were talking about how we both felt terrible
for (Masih) and the other kids who
are wrapped up in this,” Joseph said.
“We decided to do something.”
Young said the group began with
he and Joseph meeting on Tuesdays in
the school’s library. Following the Free
the Children leadership workshop, he
said they honed in on what they wanted from other potential members.
Now, Youth for Change has a core
of 11 leaders, including Young and
Joseph, and a total of 60 members,
all from Northdale.
“We didn’t really know a lot of
the other kids,” Joseph said. “But

Northdale Middle School seventh graders Abraham Joseph and Tyler Young, kneeling and holding Iqbal Masih’s photo, with the other nine core members of their student activist group Youth For Change. Pam Zimba, far right, and her unit on child
labor inspired the group’s formation.

they were part of the leadership
workshop and seemed dedicated.
Now we’re all friends.”

Real Difference
Youth for Change isn’t fooling
around.
Just a couple of months after
forming, the group of seventh
graders held a Free the Children
sponsored “pennies program” where
the group solicited donations of
spare coins and pennies.
Zimba said the results were staggering. In a week, the group managed to fill a number of jugs and
raised more than $600 in coins.
But that’s not even the half of it.
Staff in the building, also inspired by
Zimba and Youth For Change, raised
another $610. Another donation of
$100 came in, too, Zimba said,
resulting in $1,310 being raised in
just one week, all of which was given
to Free the Children.
“That’s enough money to provide
clean drinking water to 50 people for
the rest of their lives,” Zimba said.
In addition, the group has held a
movie night to raise funds for the
school’s food shelf, Victor’s Pantry,
and on April 18 participated in Free
the Children’s “We are Silent”
fundraiser that challenges students
to stand in silence for 24 hours with
children whose voices are silenced
by not having their rights upheld.
Those two fundraisers earned
enough money for the group to give
a third of the proceeds directly to
Free the Children, with the rest paying for two Cub Foods shopping
trips for Victor’s Pantry.
Zimba said it’s wonderful to see
the students making a tangible
impact with fundraising, but it’s
equally gratifying to see them grow
as people.
“These kids, they aren’t your typical leaders,” Zimba said. “I see them
developing this quiet confidence as
they discover their own strengths. It’s
wonderful to see them empowered.”

F O C U S

And now, their hard work is
being recognized. Back on Feb. 6, a
number of Northdale students,
including Joseph and Young, participated in Free the Children’s first We
Day event held in the U.S.
Held every year in stadiums
across Canada, We Day is Free the
Children’s culmination to yearlong
student volunteer projects. The
program attracts a star-studded
roster of speakers, and this year’s
event, held at Patrick Henry High
School in Minneapolis, featured teen
heartthrobs the Jonas Brothers,
actress Mia Farrow, and other local
dignitaries.
“You can’t buy a ticket to We
Day,” Zimba said. “The kids had to
earn a spot by doing something to
make a difference globally, and also
do something locally. They really
earned it.”
And chances are they’ll earn a
return trip to this year’s We Day,
which will be held Oct. 8 at the Xcel
Energy Center.

Tradition
For Zimba, Youth For Change is
something of a crowning achievement. She retired in June, but says
she plans to stay connected to the
group she helped inspire.
“At the end of the school year,
when I’m wrapping up everything,
my students tell me that the child
labor unit had the biggest impact
upon them,” Zimba said. “But this is
different. It means a lot to me to
think I may have helped to inspire
them to do this.”
Joseph and Young hope to have
the group grow next school year, not
only in Northdale, but maybe across
middle schools around the AnokaHennepin School District, someday,
too.
“We’re doing something that
makes a difference, and that feels
good,” Joseph said. ■

F A L L

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