(CNN)One night this summer in Dubai, Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi was riding in a car pulling out from a screening of “The Price of Free,” a documentary about his life, as a boy ran out in front of the line of cars, shouting his name. The 65-year-old Indian anti-child labor activist got out of his car, thinking something was wrong.
The boy, about 14 or 15, wanted to shake Satyarthi’s hand and told him, “I have to be Kailash Satyarthi. I have no other choice in my life.”
Satyarthi has been fighting against child labor most of his life. His passion isn’t simply for children, it’s about their dreams. If childhood itself is seen as a sacred time, he believes, then children are less likely to be exploited for labor.
“I only have one goal in life,” Satyarthi told CNN at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Though there’s still a long way to go, he’s pleased at how much progress the world has made.