“Childhood Matters” is the title of the opening chapter of this singular documentary, which presents the voices of children in Nepal who are former carpet factory workers. Once exploited and abused as cheap labor, the 23 children who speak in this volume are now living in, and attending school at, facilities run by Rugmark, an organization that monitors carpet factories in Nepal, India, and Pakistan and certifies carpets made by adults who earn a decent wage. An outgrowth of that work has been Rugmark’s efforts to remove children from the harsh conditions in other factories and provide them with a safe place to live and go to school. Author Tanya Roberts-Davis is barely out of childhood herself, but she has been involved with Free the Children, a Canadian organization that focuses on child-labor issues, since she was 12. In 1999, at age 16, Roberts-Davis traveled to Nepal and spent six weeks living with and talking to children at the Rugmark Centers. The personal stories, poems, and artwork those children presented to Roberts-Davis are collected here, along with the author’s overview of the economic conditions in Nepal that have led to so many exploited children, and information on organizations around the world that are working toward change. (Age 10 and older)

In these stories children vividly remember the day their lives changed for the better -- the day a Rugmark inspector came into the factory and asked them whether they wanted to go to school. The children describe their fear of the unknown, the loneliness of being taken to a school where they knew no one, and finally the joy of having what North American children take for granted: sufficient food, clean water, the opportunity to learn, the time to play, and the chance to fulfill dreams for the future.