Around Town: Free the Children: It's about doing 'the right thing'

A sold-out crowd of Ottawa business and community leaders banded together Saturday at the Hilton Lac-Leamy for a night of inspiration, hope and change while raising more than $400,000 for a Free The Children initiative to pull developing communities out of the cycle of poverty.

Specifically, the funds raised at the Building a Better World, One Village At a Time dinner will help the village of Kalthana in India’s north-western province of Rajasthan. The project is empowering the villagers to provide: proper education for their children, clean water and sanitation, adequate health care, and sustainable agriculture. As well, families are working toward economically supporting themselves.

The initiative is more than just charity work, said Farm Boy CEO Jeff York, who’s on the committee and co-chairs WE Day Ottawa. “It’s about doing the right thing.”

Leading the group is Ottawa neonatologist Dr. Pradeep Merchant and Dundee Corporation investment advisor Patrick Mullins, who also co-chairs WE Day Ottawa. Special guests included India’s high commissioner to Canada, Vishnu Prakash, Mayor Jim Watson, Nepean’s new Liberal MP, Chandra Arya, and former Ottawa mayor Jim Durrell. Prominent members of Ottawa’s Indo-Canadian business community were also out to support the cause.

In town to speak at the dinner was Craig Kielburger. He shared his remarkable story behind the origin of Free The Children, the Canadian-based international charity that he co-founded as a 12-years-old child rights activist.

On average, it takes about five years for an Adopt A Village community to become economically self-sustaining, he told the room. “Success for us is the exit,” said Kielburger, 33. “This isn’t a story of Canada coming to India. No, no, no, this is a story of partnership.”

The dinner marked the first event organized by the volunteer committee in its goal to raise $1 million for Adopt A Village India.

Carolyn001@sympatico.ca