Step 5. Respond by sharing your knowledge, skills, talents, etc.
Share your passion and knowledge of the issue with others, generating their interest and involvement. Talk to your family and friends, fellow students and people in your community. Get their ideas, tap their knowledge base, etc.

	Burns Weston, Director, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, and Spencer, 12, Teaching About Global Child Labor Conference, July 26, 2004, Iowa City, Iowa

Educate others

• Set up a visual art display.
• Give speeches to the students in your class and in others schools, and to community groups.
• Share the articles that have captured your attention.
• Perform a role play exercise. In groups of two, play the roles of a child laborer and an employer. Imagine that you could do anything you wanted to if you were that person and watch each others dramas unfold. Or, enact one of the real-life stories you have read from: link to real-life stories.
• Use your imagination to attract others to your issue by, for instance, writing a poem or song.

Develop your group's public speaking skills. Practice your speeches in front of each other to gain confidence and learn from your peers' suggestions and constructive criticism.

How to Write an AMAZING Speech

Tips on Public Speaking

Build public knowledge

• Ask the school principal if your group can give a presentation to an entire grade or even the whole school.
• Organize and recruit students to attend a showing of "Stolen Childhoods," documentary about child labor in seven countries, and host a discussion.
• Make and distribute in your school and community brochures/flyers about your group and the issue to which you are responding.
• Write articles for local publications. Carefully proofread any articles (or flyers) that you write for the public, to catch any mistakes.
• Create, print and distribute thousands of educational bookmark. On one side, outline facts associated with child labor; on the other, offer strategies to address child labor. Write to Staples asking them to donate cardstock paper and printing services. For detailed steps on how to carry out a Bookmark Campaign, please see STUDENT ACTION PLAN: Bookmark Campaign in the Real-Life Collection.
• Organize a peer workshop and invite students from other schools to attend.
• Write a press release drawing attention to an event planned by your group. Make sure you include who, what, where, when, why and how.
• Organize a child labor free shopping trip to the nearest mall. Write a short questionnaire/survey for Store Managers. In groups of three interview the managers of specific clothing, sports and electronic stores, and the food court. Ask them if they can guarantee that every item sold in their stores was made without child labor. Ask if you may see their corporate "Workers Code of Conduct" indicating exactly how they guarantee that their goods are child labor free. For detailed steps on how to carry out a Child Labor Free Shopping Trip, please see STUDENT ACTION PLAN: Child Labor Free Shopping Trip to the Mall in the Real-Life Collection.
• Call or write letters to company CEOs at the corporate headquarters of stores, asking the above questions and encouraging them not to use child labor in the manufacturing of their goods and products.
• Buy responsibly yourself; check labels and avoid companies that you know use child labor.
• Organize a local educational march against global child labor.
• Host parties featuring educational documentaries and discussions about child labor.
• Organize weekly meetings and recruit volunteers from the community to present and organize with students.
• Promote the integration of child labor education into the existing curriculum - to the School Board and your teachers.

Fundraise for your own project, or to support an initiative in a less developed country.

How To Throw A Fantastic FUNdraiser

FUNdraising Ideas

For instance,

• Sell Services: Have group members perform chores - walk dogs, shovel snow, garden, rake leaves, wash cars, mow lawns, baby sit - for a set fee
• Organize a Day of Community Service, on which you donate your services
• Organize a School or Community Yard Sale or Car Wash
• Sell Goods: Sell goods - e.g., candles, wrapping paper, baked goods, etc. - in your school or neighborhoods. Always ask companies to donate items in exchange for publicity
• Sell fairly traded organic hot chocolate at school. Consider ordering products from Equal Exchange
• Sell and deliver candy-grams - little bags of candy with note cards tied to them.
• Any event can be a fundraiser if you get pledges and add -a-thon to it. Get pledges and then have a bike-a-thon or a walk-a-thon.
• Collect donated goods, services and/or talents and raffle or auction them off. For detailed steps on how to execute a Dinner Auction, please see STUDENT ACTION PLAN: Dinner Auction to Raise Funds and Awareness in the Real-Life Collection.
• Place donation boxes in local businesses with their permission
• Host a Community Day Against Child Labor at a local restaurant which agrees ahead of time to donate 20 percent of the proceeds to your group in order to address child labor.
• Show a popular movie and charge people admission to come. You can charge for popcorn and drinks, too.
• Consult Take Action! a step-by-step guide to acive citizenship that equips youth with the tools they need to affect change and includes 101 Fundraising Ideas. Ideal for grades 8-10.

Make sure you know where your money is going and that it will be used for your intended purposes.

Pick a Project

Selecting a Fundrasing Recipient

If you wish, get involved and support one of the following initiatives that empower children:

• Organize a youth workshop in your town to educate students about global child labor issues.
• Build a school in Shiv's village in India. Read Shiv's real-life story.
• Support a Bal Panchayat (Children's Committee) to meet a need they have identified in their child-friendly village in India. For instance, the need for a water tank, or girls' bathroom, in their local school. To learn more about Bal Panchayats, read the India case study.
• Support a Program Promoting Children's Rights to inform working children of their rights and enable them to study in through Centro de Estudios Sociales y Publicaciones (CESIP). For example, read about four students, including 17-year-old Reyna, who created their own Computer Business - a Cyber Café - after undergoing entrepreneurship training from CESIP.
• Support a rehabilitation center in India, or a shelter for child domestic workers in Togo, West Africa to help emancipate, rehabilitate, educate and empower children liberated from the worst forms of child labor.

The above examples are to help you identify what kind of project your group might like to initiate or support.