Monday, July 25, 2011
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From left, Brooke O’Neill of Boardman, Shawn Burton of Youngstown, Victoria Aikens of Girard and Krissy Hans of Louisville, Ohio, were among 10 YSU students who traveled to South Africa in May.
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Ten Youngstown State University students traveled thousands of miles to help children in need.
They conducted fundraisers throughout the school year for the trip and the school supplies for the children who attend the school in George, South Africa.
The YSU students were struck not only by the degree of poverty they saw during their 17-day trip last May but also by the children’s delight in things children in the United States take for granted.
“To see the kids’ faces over a balloon or a sticker was just so heartwarming,” said Victoria Aikens of Girard, a graduate student studying mental-health counseling at YSU.
“Those kids so appreciate the smaller things in life,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking, but at the same time, it’s gratifying.”
The trip was sponsored by Project Learning Around the World, an organization that delivers school supplies and enhances learning environments for children in rural township schools in South Africa and other developing countries.
Audrey Ellenwood, a YSU associate professor of counseling and special education, founded the organization and started taking the trips to South Africa with students while a professor at Bowling Green State University.
This marked the first trip for YSU students. Ellenwood joined the YSU faculty last year, and Project Learning Around the World is now a student organization at the university.
Ellenwood, who returned to South Africa last week, started the trips in 1995 after meeting a professor from the University of South Africa.
The areas the students visit are destitute.
“They have one pencil for five children,” Ellenwood said. “Supplies are extremely limited.”
Besides delivering school supplies, PLATW also builds playgrounds for the children.
Ellenwood wanted to share her experiences with her students.
“I tell them they need to see the eyes of the children,” she said.
Unlike in the U.S. where all children have the right to be educated, where the students visited, children have to pay to go to school.
The trip included visits to homes of some students.
“To see a condemned home in the United States, it’s a mansion compared to the home we went to,” Aikens said.
At that home, the family dug a hole in the middle of the floor to build a fire to keep warm, she said. Clothes, shoes and even food are scarce.
A teacher whom the students met brings loaves of bread weekly for the children to take home to ensure they have something to eat.
Aikens said she wants to make the trip again next year.
“It’s the satisfaction of knowing that I made a difference,” she said. “When I came home, it was hard to be able to go to grocery store to buy food knowing there were kids who wouldn’t eat that night.”
Cara Riffe of Greenville, Pa., who is studying counseling at YSU, also made the trip.
“After I saw what other students did there, there was no way I couldn’t go,” Riffe said.
Upon arriving, she was struck by how much the children there appreciate the simple things that they have.
The kids were “very excited to see us,” she said. “When they saw us coming, they were just so excited.”
The students gave the children balloons to play with.
“Most of them didn’t know what to do with a balloon,” Riffe said. “We had to show them to throw it in the air and catch it. Once they started playing with it, they started laughing. It was nice to see.”
She said the experience has changed her.
“I used to get my nails done every other week and get a pedicure every other week” Riffe said. “I used to get a massage once a month. I’ve stopped doing that. I took off my acrylic nails two or three days after we got back. I haven’t gone shopping since I got back. It gave me perspective on things that are truly important.”