WE Charity
WE Charity (French: Organisme UNIS), formerly known as Free the Children (French: Enfants Entraide), is an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger.[1] The organization implemented development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, focusing on education, water, health, food and economic opportunity.[2] It also runs domestic programming for young people in Canada, the US and UK, promoting corporate-sponsored service learning and active citizenship.[3] Charity Intelligence, a registered Canadian charity that rates over 750 Canadian charities, rates the "demonstrated impact" per dollar of We Charity as "Low" and has issued a "Donor Advisory" due to We Charity replacing most of its board of directors in 2020.[4]
"Free the Children" redirects here. For the book about the free school movement, see Free the Children (book).Formation
1995
International charity and educational partner
Free the Children
WE Charity is related to other ventures from the Kielburgers, including the for-profit Me to We, which was the title of a 2004 book by Craig and Marc Kielburger,[5] and We Day, a series of large-scale motivational events held in 17 cities throughout the school year.
A scandal arose when the charity was selected by the Canadian federal government in 2020 for a $43.53 million contract to oversee $900 million for the Canada Student Service Grant,[6] but the decision was reversed after ties between the organization and the Trudeau family, including payments to Justin Trudeau's wife, brother, and mother, as well as the family of former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, were called into question.[7][8][9]
On 9 September 2020, We Charity announced that it was winding down its operations in Canada and selling its assets to establish an endowment that will help sustain ongoing We Charity projects around the world.[10][11][12] The announcement also explains that the existing board of directors, the existing Canadian employees, and the Kielburgers would leave We Charity Canada.[13]
In November 2020, a Wikipedia investigation found the Wikipedia article for the WE Charity was illicitly modified by "paid agents who used deceptive online identities" from Israeli online reputation management service «Percepto International». The Chief Operations Officer for WE Charity, Scott Baker, denied involvement with the sockpuppetry and Percepto declined to comment.[14]
In November 2021, CBC News reported that the WE Charity misled donors about the school they built in Kenya. "Far fewer schools were built than were funded by donors, a fact that leaked internal WE documents show was co-ordinated at the highest levels of the organization." WE Charity denied the report.[15] CBC reported that, likely in a "co-ordinated campaign", a large number of groups and individuals wrote letters and emails discouraging them from reporting the story in the months leading up to its publication. The messages largely came from educators and charities, and included a full-page advertisement printed in several newspapers in September that argued that the news report was not in the public interest.[16] On 8 February 2022, WE Charity filed a defamation lawsuit over the report in District of Columbia District Court.[17][18]
Programs
Domestic
Students take part in activities such as food and clothing drives for the homeless,[33] anti-bullying campaigns,[33] and fundraisers to build water projects,[34] and schools[35] in countries where WE Charity works, including Kenya, India, and Ecuador. They also raise money for other organizations and causes, such as children's hospitals, the Terry Fox Run, and women's shelters.[36]
We Charity partners with the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative to deliver the "We Stand Together" campaign, promoted as strengthening ties between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada by emphasizing Canadian Indigenous history in classrooms.[37]
In August 2019, the federal government announced that it was giving $3 million to WE Social Entrepreneurs initiative, aiming to create 200 "youth-led enterprises" that address social issues at a community level.[38][39]
International
In July 2019, the organization opened its first WE College in Narok County, Kenya. It offered a range of courses to girls of Maasai Mara community.[40] The charity and Me to We formerly carried out activities including school construction and We Day in China. Its purported connection to the Government of China came under scrutiny during the broader government contract scandal, though the organization denied that any relationship existed.[41]
Governance and financials
WE Charity is governed by separate Boards of Directors in Canada, the US and UK. The Canadian Board Chairwoman was Michelle Douglas, a Canadian human rights activist.[53] She resigned in March 2020, at the same time as many other board members.[54] Douglas has said publicly since that she resigned because of "concerning developments" at the charity.[55] Board members are drawn from government, academia, business, media and charitable sectors.[56]
Concerns have been raised about the blurred lines between We Charity and Me to We.[57] These blurred lines include both organizations having the same Chief Financial Officer.[58] According to Charity Intelligence, in 2019, We Charity transferred 7% of its revenue to Me to We, a magnitude of revenue transferred from a charity to a related for-profit company that Charity Intelligence has not seen with any other charities.[59][60] We Charity's response to these concerns is that over a 5-year period preceding 2020, even after excluding the value of services and in kind contributions, Me to We contributed a net of $1.3 million more than it received from We Charity.[60]
Education and WE College
In 1998, WE Charity began funding the construction of primary schools in Kenya.[61][62] In 2003, the organization began partnerships with the Maasai and Kipsigis communities to build schools, hospitals and libraries as well as water, sanitation and agricultural irrigation projects.[63] WE Charity's Kisaruni All Girls High School is ranked among the top high schools in Narok County.[62]
In 2017, WE College in Maasai Mara, a post-secondary institution in Enelerai, South Narok County, Kenya, opened its School of Nursing, followed by schools of Clinical Medicine and Entrepreneurial Agriculture, with the intention of later adding schools of Public Health, Technical Studies, Business and Technology and Education.[62][61] This was the first nursing training program in the region. Nursing was considered especially important in Kenya, where the ratio of nurses to population stood around 25 to 10,000, whereas the Kenyan government recommended 83 to 10,000. As of 2019, all of the nursing school's students were women, despite being open to both sexes.[61]
In July 2019, Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta presided over the official opening ceremony of WE College, where she emphasized the importance of educating girls and women. Also present and speaking were Narok Governor Samuel Tunai, Kenya's Chief Administrative Secretary for Interior Patrick Ole Ntutu and Principal Secretary for Department of Vocational and Technical Education Kevit Desai as well as Canadian High Commissioner to Kenya Lisa Stadelbauer, former Canadian First Lady Margaret Trudeau and former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell.[63]
Kenyatta also toured the Baraka Hospital, which is likewise located in Enelarai and includes a level IV trauma center.[63] In 2015, the Narok County District Quality Assurance Team had voted WE Charity's Baraka Hospital Maternity Wing the best in the country.[62]
In December 2019, WE Charity hosted Selena Gomez, who had been a supporter of the charity for over six years, along with her friend Raquelle Stevens for ten days in Kenya, While in Kenya, Gomez met students at WE's Kisaruni girls' high school and at WE College, and learned beading with local practitioners.[64][65]
In 2017, WE charity opened the Agricultural Learning Center in Ecuador's Chone village, where students learn to grow produce in the school's garden and sell it to local markets as entrepreneurs. WE's food security strategy includes introducing teachers and students to crops not commonly grown in the immediate region, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, watermelon and pineapple to supplement the locally more typical yucca, cacao, coffee and plantains.[61]
Work culture
Some former employees and volunteers of We Charity have criticized the way they were treated at the organization.[66] Former employees have been prevented from speaking about the organization because of non-disclosure agreements and described being in a culture of fear when challenging internal decisions.[66] In June 2020, Amanda Maitland, a former We Charity employee, said a speech she wrote for a We Schools tour in 2019 about her experiences as a black woman was edited without her approval by a group of mostly white staff members.[66] Maitland said when she tried a few months later to speak up a staff meeting about problems within the organization, she was "aggressively" shut down by Marc Kielburger.[66] In July 2020, Marc and Craig Kielburger apologized "unreservedly" to Maitland on their personal Instagram accounts.[66] The Kielburgers said the editing of Maitland's speech "simply should not have happened."[66] A petition that circulated in July 2020 called on We Charity to take specific anti-racist measures.[66] WE Charity said in a statement to CBC News that it "stands firmly for inclusion, diversity and the equitable, open treatment of all."[66]
WE Charity v. CBC
On February 8 2022, WE Charity's New York-based affiliate filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for defamation.[79][80][81][82] The 230-page complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where the case was assigned to district judge Randolph D. Moss.[79][82]
The lawsuit alleges that, in an hour-long piece for its series The Fifth Estate, the CBC broadcast claims by reporters Mark Kelly and Harvey Cashore that the CBC knew to be false, including that WE Charity had exaggerated the number of schoolhouses it had built in Kenya and deceived donors about how their money had been spent. WE Charity accused the CBC of fabricating quotes and using misleading editing to support what WE called a "preconceived narrative."[79][80]
Joe Patrice of the Above the Law website, which covers legal news, reviewed the details of the lawsuit and called it a "mirror image" of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network.[81][83] Dominion Voting Systems, originally a Canadian company, choose to sue Fox News Network in the United States, ultimately settling for $787.5 million.[84] Similarly, WE Charity, whose American operations are incorporated in Williamsville, New York, sued the CBC in the United States, in both instances despite the hurdle of the "actual malice" standard established in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which is unique to American law and requires that the defendant either knew that or didn't care if its representations were false.[81] Pattrice writes, "The CBC produced segments claiming that the charity misappropriated donor money… it did not."[83]
On May 4, the CBC's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case per forum non conveniens, saying that it would be more appropriately heard before a Canadian court.[79][80][81][83][82] WE Charity replied on June 10, countering that the CBC's allegations had hindered its fundraising efforts in the United States, where many of its donors are located.[83][82] On June 27, Judge Moss denied the CBC's motion, ruling that the case would proceed in the District Court.[79][80][83][82] Moss rejected the CBC's assertion that travel from Canada to the United States was unduly burdensome, and held that the relative ease of modern electronic discovery and document transfer between jurisdictions made the existence of documentary evidence in Canada a negligible hurdle to litigation in the United States.[83] Patrice suggests that, even ten years prior, the CBC's motion might have succeeded, and sees the decision as an example of how the rise of digital media is revolutionizing the legal profession.[83]
