How Free the Children Is Changing the World

Caroline Williams '17, Staff Writer

The Free the Children campaign works to spread awareness about the millions of children who are oppressed and silenced in totalitarian nations. I interviewed the president of Marymount’s Free the Children club, Grace Rector, to get an inside look on what the club is all about.

Grace explained how she got involved with the club, “At my old school, our seventh grade teacher introduced us to Free the Children and asked the class to volunteer. No one signed up so he simply chose random students, including myself. Although I involuntarily joined, I am so glad that I participated and then fell in love with it. A group from the Free the Children organization came to my school one day and spoke about it. They introduced their trips to aid others in poor countries. I have gone two years in a row, and am joining them again this summer.”

Grace plans to raise awareness for the club and hopes to increase involvement with in the organization’s outside events. Grace stated that she loves “being able to take part in empowering youth to make a change, and witnessing students leading themselves.” In addition, Marymount is hoping to collaborate with Crossroads’ and Loyola’s Free the Children clubs, hosting activities such as beach clean ups and sandwich-making in the 2015-2016 school year.

Megan Sidhu, the educational programming coordinator from Free the Children, works with club leaders to make sure that their events run smoothly. She has been involved since age eleven, and Megan loves the organization because she can oftentimes observe a “change in the world” after plenty of hard work. She hopes to encourage all types of people to join; she said, “It doesn’t matter what you’re passionate about, how old you are, what your circumstances are, you can make a difference in this world . . . It can be something small, it could be holding the door open for somebody or it can be something big; it could be a political movement, it could be a fundraiser, it could be an awareness raiser; it doesn’t matter, you can change the world.”