Student gets up close look at world problems

Eighth-grader Sydney Smart has experienced the world like few others her age. The Holy Name of Mary School student recently traveled to Ghana, where she learned first-hand about child trafficking and child slavery.

Sydney traveled to Africa through Journey for Change: Empowering Youth through Global Service. The program was started in 2008 by Angel Rock, wife of comedian Chris Rock.

Lea Cohen, assistant to Angel Rock, said the organization has since partnered with the Touch a Life Foundation to address child trafficking at Lake Volta in Ghana. Thousands of children there are enslaved in the fishing industry and the organizations meet with slave masters and negotiate the release of kids.

During her week in Ghana, Sydney got to witness how children work as slaves every day from dawn to dusk. She said the children are poorly nourished, uneducated and think that it is just the way of life. “They just seemed trapped inside the box,” she said, “and they can’t do anything about it.”

The area Sydney visited was a middle class area, where the people are humble and welcoming, Sydney explained. The weather was hot and humid.

Sydney got to meet five children who have been rescued from slavery. She said they are very friendly and have wonderful personalities. The children are now being educated and are on their way to a better life. “They’re happy,” she said. “They can actually spend their lives as a child with a childhood.”

She learned how children enter slavery. They are often sold by their parents, who can’t afford to take care of their children any longer. Children enslaved in the fishing industry are as young as 4 and as old as 17, and many can’t swim, Sydney explained.

When she returned to school, Sydney told her classmates how the organization rescued two children during her visit.

Sydney, of Far Rockaway, said she had to write an essay before she was accepted into the program. She wrote about her own challenges as child, overcoming speech delays in her early years. At an interview, Sydney said she was asked how she felt the experience would make her a better person.

No doubt, Sydney said, she is the better for it. “It changed me a lot,” she said. “I used to be selfish and not think of others. Today I think of others and I try to step in their shoes.”

For Sydney, it was her second trip to Africa. In 2008, she was part of a group of 30 teens who traveled to Johnannesburg, South Africa, to met families living in shanty towns. Most of the parents had died from AIDS or HIV, and the households were being run by either grandmothers or the oldest child.

Sydney was one of only five of that group to return to Africa to learn about the child slave trade. She blogged about her experience while on the trip.

Cohen said she was particularly proud of Sydney for approaching a slave master at Lake Volta and asking him how he grew up, and if he would have liked to live the way the child slaves do. “It was truly amazing on our end to see a kid feeling empowered,” Cohen said.

Later this month, Sydney will venture to Capitol Hill to tell federal legislators about her experience. She will tell them about the problems that exist on other continents, with the hope that the United States will be able to help. Perhaps, she said, if the slave masters were given the proper financial resources, they wouldn’t need child slaves.

Cohen said the five rescued slaves and five American teens became like family during the week the spent together. “The last day, they did not want to part,” she said. “The tears were flowing. They really grew close.”