"The Madness of Chocolate" by: Brandon Soto

                                                                              

  Dear chocolate cravers,

   

   “Swoosh” goes the machete while it vigorously cuts down the cocoa pods off the cocoa trees. Their masters yelling, “No lollygagging!” Then all of a sudden you hear “whip” as the men beat the children with whips. Harmful chemicals splatter on their wounds while they crack open cocoa pods. While we devour the chocolate we can’t live without, children in West Africa are starving left, right, and center. Most popular chocolate brands use child labor to get their chocolate. We think that companies should be fair, make adults work, make adults, and pat them fairly.

  

   According to the text “Child Slavery and Chocolate” “Yacou can’t clear grass in the cocoa fields without cutting himself.” This sentence represents how child labor impacts the health of the children. When the children cut the grass to clear the way they sometimes cut their legs. Since some of them are 5-8 years of age, it’s difficult for the children to hold and use the machetes. When they go to open the cocoa pods the chemicals splatter on their face and cuts. When the chemicals gets on their cuts it burns and it gets really infected. They also get whipped by the adults if they slack off.

    

   Cocoa comes from different parts of the world but we are going to be focusing on the Ivory Coast in Africa. Children are shipped there from other countries. On farms, the children take machetes and cut down cocoa pods from cocoa trees. After that they cut the pods open to expose the sticky cocoa beans. According to the video, “The Dark Side of Chocolate” the children take the cocoa beans and dry them up on banana leaves. When people ship children illegally it’s called trafficking. Like what I said earlier this paragraph, they ship kids country to country usually with land vehicles like cars, buses, and motorcycles. Even though trafficking is illegal we still sell products that use trafficking. According to the text “Child Slavery and Chocolate” UNICEF estimates nearly half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast.

   

   There are some things we can do to stop or prevent child labor. For example, in the article “Reverse Trick-or-Treat” children give out fair trade chocolate to raise awareness of child labor. Instead of Chocolate being given to children, the children give chocolate out. This shows how fair trade chocolate is better than child labor chocolate. Fair trade is when there is no child labor to make the chocolate and that the farmers are getting paid fairly. In “Reverse Trick-or-Treaters” Gaurav Noronha said, “The farmers from whom this company gets the cocoa, they are paid fairly. Usually farmers are not paid well enough.” This quote explains how fair trade cocoa farmers are paid more than other farmers. This is only one way how you can raise awareness.

   

   In conclusion, children get cuts on their legs that get extremely infected by the chemicals. They also get whipped from the adults. One way to raise awareness is to reverse trick-or-treat. You can also advertise like make a stand around the corner and sell fair trade chocolate and say what children go through to make us chocolate.

                                                                                                

                                                                                                 Yours Sincerely,

                                                                                                Brandon Soto

                    

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                            

The chocolate we eat is not what you think! by Michael Rodriguez

Dear chocoholic,

Have you ever thought of many children suffering child labor? Would you spread the word about it? Would you help them? Think about it. Kids risk lives just to make chocolate. The chocolate we enjoy is the chocolate that the children suffer farming all day all night.

Kids suffer while just trying to farm cocoa pods. Kids chop down the cocoa pods. Suppose the kids that are suffering child labor are your kids. What would you do? According to “Child Labor and Chocolate” it states that he(Abdul) squats with a gang of a dozen harvesters on an ivory cost farm.” This means that these kids have started from a young age just like Abdul (from the CNN chocolate child slaves ) he has been trafficked.

People have been warned about child labor. People try doing something about it but there’re still

over half a million children

forced into child labor in the Ivory Coast. Kids suffer every second, for example right now kids are suffering from injuries.

 Would you try your best to help kids like this that are suffering from child labor?

  

Where does your chocolate come from? Jaylin Morillo 601

 Where does your chocolate come from?

Dear chocoholic, 

Put the chocolate down!! You eat chocolate everyday but yet you don’t know where it comes from. Some children’s have never had a child hood because guess what they’re doing, there making chocolate for others. They make chocolate everyday but they have never tasted chocolate. They suffer a lot. They get cut with machetes and they get burned with the chemicals form the plants, and all of this isn’t even the beginning. According to the article child slavery and chocolate: all too easy to find, “scars crisscross yacous legs from a machete.”

 There are a lot of INSANE people in this world, especially people that own child labor businesses. Children are sent out to cut cocoa pods with machetes. The plants have a chemical that burns your skin plus the sun beams on their skin as well. These kids don’t even get to sleep and if they do it’s like 2 hours. Do you think that’s enough sleep for a child?

The courses of actions you could take are buying fair trade chocolate. Fair trade chocolate is chocolate that isn’t made by child labor. According to the article “Don’t be tricked by Halloween treats “, “…times have changed in the United States ,yet children across the globe still work under unconscionable conditions to satisfy our sweet tooth”

All the chocolate we enjoy is made from pain. Little children suffering to pick the football sized cocoa beans. Just for their milky white cocoa beans, to make chocolate we eat.                                                                                                                                                          Sincerely,                                                                                                                      Jaylin Morillo

Chocolate Origins by Eduardo Ramos 601

Dear Chocolate lover,

         Can you imagine that chocolate is mostly made by suffering little hands? Well those hands are the hands of suffering children. These children work very hard every day in farms. Some don’t get paid, harvesting cocoa beans to make chocolate. Some kids haven’t even tasted chocolate. Some risk their lives for their work especially with tools like the machetes. Child labor is used on cocoa plantations to produce the chocolate we love.

         There are some news teams like CNN (Chocolate Child Slaves) that have brought to light about child labor being used. Some have written articles, books, and poems about child labor. There are a lot of children who do hazardous work for no money. But these children are putting their lives at risk, just for making chocolate. They might get hurt harvesting cocoa beans, with the machetes or chemicals. Some kids are trafficked or taken away from their families. Welcome to the life of a 7 year old boy named Abdul. He was trafficked away from his parents. He is uneducated, treated unfairly, etc. His life is like other children doing unfair labor. There’s is a poem that Frieda Dennis Cooper wrote. There was a line that spoke to me, which was “Wishes of a comfy bed and enough food to stop the pangs they’ve come to know all too well.” This demonstrates that, they barely get any rest, food, and care. They are treated like slaves.

We need to stop this madness by protesting to companies and put pressure on them. We can sign a petition for this. We can make people aware what’s going on outside the United States. It’s just like Reverse Trick or Treating. It is during Halloween, when kids hand back their own Fair Trade Certified organic dark chocolate. Fair Trade Chocolate is “a program guarantees farmers a minimum price for their output, enforces fair labor conditions(prohibiting forced labor) and encourages environmental sustainability”(line from Don’t Be Tricked by Halloween treats by Ben Block).

 No matter what, this child labor needs to stop. Children are people, too.                        

                                                                                             Sincerely,

                                                                                         Eduardo Ramos

Blood Chocolate by Randy Garcia

Dear Chocolate Lover

          Wwwwssshh! That’s the sound of a whip. Barbarous people forcing kids to work at a young age with no pay or little pay harvesting cocoa beans in the Ivory Coast. Welcome to the life of 7 year old Abdul. He is a child slave in Ivory Coast cracking cocoa beans and dumping the milky white cocoa beans in a pile.

                Children play a critical role on cocoa plantations. Children harvest the football size cocoa beans with machetes. The children are brought to be put to work in cocoa farms  and even trafficked to the Ivory Coast. When trafficked, they are separated from their families. Children crack the cocoa beans and  then they ferment the beans with banana leaves. Can you imagine cocoa industry signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol to eliminate cocoa grown using forced child labor. But they are still using cocoa beans harvested using forced child labor.

Children working in cocoa plantations get injuries either from the pesticides or from the machetes. When harvesting the cocoa beans the children can have accidents cutting down the cocoa beans and cut themselves. When cutting down the cocoa beans their skin starts burning because of the pesticide. The video ‘’The Darkside of Chocolate‘’ showed a girl about the age of 9 with scars and bruises on her body all bloody.

          Some courses of action are reverse trick treating. Reverse trick or treating is kids giving fair trade chocolate during Halloween.Fair trade chocolate that is not made with child labor and pay the farmers a well amount of money. Reverse trick or treating is way to try to raise awareness of child labor in cocoa farms. In conclusion, those are the dangers of child labor in the Ivory Coast. Children play a critical role in the Ivory Coast.

 People need to be aware of the story behind a lot of the chocolate they eat.

                                                                   Yours truly

                                                                   Randy Garcia                         

             

The Tragedy of the Unknown Truth about Chocolate- Nataly Zarzuela

Dear  concerned citizen,

Ow!! My leg is bleeding because I cut myself with my machete while I was cracking the cocoa bean open. This is the life of Abdul as described in the article 'Chocolate child slave' by CNN's David Mckenzie

Children work all day just to find  cocoa beans and open them to take out the part that the companies use to make our delicious chocolate.Cocoa beans come from the west coast of Africa in the Ivory coast. An organization called the UNICEF estimated that 'nearly a half of million  children work on farms across the Ivory coast ."thousands of children have been trafficked across borders".

Children have been hurt many times but do not know what to do.Their have given up hope about their feelings of freedom Kids my age experience verbal,physical and sexual  harassment because they are taken and have restrictions on their freedom. Kids move to cocoa farms without their biological parents or legal guardians.

Reverse trick or treating is an effort to raise awareness about the prevalence of child labor on cocoa farms in west africa . In other words it is a group of people on Halloween  who have fair trade chocolate and instead of receiving it,they give it to young trick or treaters .Fair trade chocolate pays farmers a fair amount of money so they won't have to hire children 18 to work on cocoa fields.

Hershey's chocolate company has a commitment to keep by 2020. The company has to have 100 percent certified cocoa .We have to help children in child labor all over Africa.Child labor is the worst form of labor.

Sweet & Sour Chocolate Bars by Fernanda Brito

                            

Dear chocolate lover,

             Children's dreams of growing up to doctors, lawyers and other things are washing away. Their childhood is destroyed, all the playing tag and skipping on the sidewalk are long gone. These kids pass through tough times when they work their childhood away.Horrible things happen ,they get hurt and no one ever cares.
            In West Africa kids work in cocoa farms without any other option. According to the text "Bitter chocolate" , these kids "experienced worst forms of child labor including: verbal,  physical and sexual harassment..." In "child slavery and chocolate", "The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor." These children no longer have sprits to play and dream. This boy named Yacou wishes to go to school he wants to learn how to read and write. In the article "Bitter chocolate, children " performed hazardous work including land clearing and burning, carrying heavy loads..."
            To help I would buy fair trade chocolate. Fair trade chocolate is when farmers are paid more so they don't live in poverty and their children can get a education.  According to the text "Reverse Trick-or-Treaters"Deliver Fair Trade Chocolate", "The farmers from whom this company gets the cocoa, they are paid fairly."I would also support reverse trick-or-treating. Reverse trick-or-treating is when kids go trick-or-treating and as they collect candy they also give back their own fair trade-certified organic dark chocolate. This raises people awareness about the topic of child labor.
             These kids get hurt everyday, they get harassed in so many ways. I thought adults would care about us kids because we are future leaders of America and we could plan very good things for the future that would change lives and hopes. Hershey I hope you keep your commitment of having 100% certified cocoa by 2020. We need to stop child labor and convince the public to buy fair trade chocolate.

                                                                                                         Yours sincerely,
                                                                                                         Fernanda Brito