Salt shakers—January 2001

Salt shakers
January 2001

Free the Children—and your mind!
If you've heard just about all the bad news you can about Gen X, Y, or Z, here's a little correspondence we intercepted from Sister Lee Connolly, C.S.J., an Adult Mentor of Free The Children (FTC—an anti-child labor organization run by and for children), that might help change your attitude about U.S. young people:

For those of us committed to cultivating the next generation of peacemakers and justice defenders, take heart in the fact that over 100 young people age 11 through 17 met in Albany for the first [New York State] Conference sponsored by Free the Children youth on October 27-28. If you are trying to work against sweatshop abuses, nurture youth leadership, promote the dignity of work and rights of workers, and end abuses of child labor because our Faith compels us to work for social justice, then take heart that there are teenagers in your towns and villages. Kids from Vestal, Binghamton, Endicott, Cincinnatus, Herkimer, Schroon Lake, Syracuse, Baldswinsville, Rochester, Albany, Guilderland, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs, Spring Valley, Latham, Delmar, Long Island, Manhattan, etc, came together because Craig Kielburger, a 16 year old (who founded FTC at age 13), a Canadian teenager, inspired them!

From a single meeting in December 1998, the movement sweeps on. Are we wondering why it is getting harder and harder to energize adults to commit to active social justice? Conversations among social justice activists in Cleveland several months ago showed a growing concern about the uphill battle. Of course it is a long haul, but maybe we are looking in the wrong direction.

I encourage all those in Youth Ministry, Religious Education, Catholic Schools, and those parishes that have Social Concerns Committees to explore the FTC movement as a Youth for Social Justice Empowerment model. I have been mentoring the Capital District FTC for two years, and while I find it challenging to play mentor and not teacher, I am thrilled that this "social movement" is going on.

Too often we only hear of what is happening among our college kids, but I am seeing inspiring committed leadership emerging among 11 and 12, and 13 year old kids, who learn from teens and share skills and experience with each other. . . . FTC is taking root!!! PRAY that this movement continue. Pray, that more teachers and mentors will step up, revise their goals and priorities and go where the Spirit is leading. I've had the wonderful experience in my life of having heroes and heroines like Caesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Dr. King, Mother Teresa—what is the Holy Spirit saying to us when he touches the heart and voice of a 13 year old child in an advanced Catholic School in Toronto!

Pray and pass it forward.

Sister Lee Connolly, C.S.J.

For more information on anti-sweatshop efforts:
Free The Children
National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice
National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights
Department of Labor
Archdiocesan news release

Back to page top