Craig Kielburger Quotes

You need to support human development and human capital as much as possible. And we've had 25 years of programs, great programs. We supported 125,000 surgeries. We fund 15,000 scholarships every year for college and higher education. We gave bicycles for rural areas. We gave laptops.

When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.

Maximum Feasible Participation of the Poor

Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.

People can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of institutional support. They're not asking for charity, charity is no solution to poverty. Poverty is the creation of opportunities like everybody else has, not the poor people, so bring them to the poor people, so that they can change their lives.

Restore the spinning wheel to its place and you will solve the problem of poverty.

My foundation was created so I can find a way to improve the living conditions of my people in the African continent, not just in Congo.

Too often, as a global community of humanitarians, we meet the needs of the same families, the same individuals, the same communities crisis after crisis, when we are focused on meeting crisis needs but not on building resilience.

I decided to set out to prove that you could make a reasonable living building for the poor using recycled materials and only hiring unskilled labor.

In India, we now see many highly qualified professionals ready to work in the rural hinterland and in their own towns and cities to tackle development issues directly without depending much on the government.

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

I'm the founder and CEO of Sama Group, a family of social enterprises - Samasource, Samahope and SamaUSA - that are working to alleviate poverty by connecting the global community to opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and here in the U.S.

I've spent my entire life working to invest in human beings and human communities, to help them move down the path of economic development.

It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural.'

One lesson that every nation can learn from China is to focus more on creating village-level enterprises, quality health services and educational facilities.

My professional background consisted of evaluating specific programs the government was sponsoring in education or social services or, when I was in Thailand, rural development.

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

I think a lot of the problem with foreign aid and things like that is you go in, give a bunch of stuff, and then it runs out. It's about helping them learn how to continue to be sustainable and live.

To empower the women in rural areas, we have started something called Mission Shakti.

I don't have any plans to make money for myself. All I wish to do is empower rural women in our country.

Camfed graduates are active in their villages using their skills and resources to improve as many lives as possible. They are teaching financial literacy to marginalized women and bringing vital health care information to rural schoolchildren. Through example, they are demonstrating the power of philanthropy.

After I returned from Oxford, I spent 5-6 years in a village in Madhya Pradesh - 25 km. outside Bhopal - along with a group of people working with the communities. But, over time, we realised that there were just too many constraints, and for ordinary citizens to be the change agent was not that easy.

The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes.

I think one of the most important investments an organization like TNC (The Nature Conservancy) can make is in helping build local capacity - supporting the growth of a global network of small community-based entities. Help people who live within critical ecosystems help themselves and their neighbors to design a better future relationship between themselves and their natural resources.