It all started when Bilaal Rajan was 4. saw a TV news report about earthquakes in Gujarat, India, and told his father he wanted to help. “What will you do?” his father asked him. At the time the boy was eating a clementine. He said, “I’ll sell these,” and so he did, trudging door to door in his neighborhood through the Canadian winter snow with a basket of the oranges. He raised $350.
By the time he became a teen, Bilaal had raised millions of dollars for disaster victims and the underprivileged throughout the world, with a major focus on children. He sold handmade plates and donated the proceeds to HIV/AIDS orphans, helped build a school for HIV/AIDS orphans in Tanzania, sold cookie boxes of cookies to benefit children and their parents in Haiti—when disaster hits kids anywhere in the world, Bilaal moves into action.
At the grand old age of 9 he issued the Canada Kids Earthquake Challenge, asking the children of his country to raise a minimum of $100 each so they could collectively send at least $1 million in aid to the Southeast Asia tsunami victims. They surpassed that goal; with matching funds from the Canadian government, the kids’ final donation was nearly $3 million.
UNICEF took note and Bilaal became a “children’s ambassador” sent by UNICEF to Malawi, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to see how the donated millions were changing lives.
To help more children get involved in addressing the problems of the world, Bilaal founded a nonprofit, Making Change Now. He’s written and published a book, Making Change: Tips from an Underage Achiever, in which he discusses being creative, thinking big, being bold, and never taking “no” for an answer. It’s the recipe for his own success, and he shares it every chance he gets. He says, “I want children all over the world to realize their potential.”
One of his latest schemes for helping young people help others is a Sudoku website where players of the brainteaser can win UNICEF Plumpy’nut“ packages for malnourished children throughout the world.
Another, the Barefoot Challenge, occurred to him while he was watching children in Africa play soccer without shoes. He challenges young people in the industrial world to go barefoot on international Children’s Day. The kids who participate line up sponsors, then explain why they’re barefoot to their friends, families, classmates, teachers, and principals. Thousands more people learn about the needs of kids too poor to have shoes, and UNICEF gets a hefty donation for its work to help these children.
As a motivational speaker, Bilaal inspires disadvantaged young people to have goals and to reach for them, and inspires wealthier youth of the West to reach out and help kids in need. He tells them, “Always know that just a small effort in the Western world can make a big difference in the lives of children far away. Always remember, together we can make a difference.”
Stay up-to-date with Bilaal Rajan’s extraordinary actions at his main website.