One morning when I was 12, I was munching on cereal and flipping through the newspaper in search of the comics.

I couldn’t get past the front-page story. It was about a young boy in Pakistan, a child labourer named Iqbal Masih.

When he was just four years old, Iqbal went to work in a cramped, dusty room for 12 hours a day, six days a week, weaving carpets in a factory.

Iqbal was 12. I was 12.

I knew I had to do something for him. But what?

I hadn’t been looking to make a big difference in the world. I was looking for Calvin and Hobbes!

Still, I tore out Iqbal’s story and brought it to school.