Arnold teen helps create charity

Wendi Winters - For The Capital
Arnold resident Emily Schwartz, 16, demonstrates the Web site for SPEAKCambodia, a charitable organization she helped to create.

WENDI WINTERS . For The Capital
January 28, 2008

What 16-year-old Emily Schwartz lacks in stature, she makes up for with her big heart.

Last summer, the 4-foot-11-inch Key School junior traveled to Cambodia with 14 other teens from around the country. They were enrolled in Putney Student Travel's month-long Global Awareness Program focusing on world issues. The youngsters were led by University of California, Berkeley PhD candidate, Rak Sam, who is fluent in Khmer, the official Cambodian language.

Global Awareness is one of Putney Student Travel's five service-oriented programs involving summertime travel abroad for youth offered by the 57-year-old, family-run corporation that's headquartered in a recycled cow barn in Putney, Vt.

Instead of sightseeing and shopping, throughout their stay, the youth immersed themselves in the day-to-day life of Cambodia's impoverished and orphaned citizens. They worked side-by-side with non-governmental organizations on community service projects designed to specifically tackle women's and children's health and education problems.

Each summer, Putney sponsors approximately 1,300 U.S. teens as they travel to experience the less glamorous side of the real world at more than 50 community service projects scattered around the globe. The trip to Cambodia, which was sandwiched between 2 days of orientation and 2 days of debriefing at a Yale dorm, will cost $7,790 in Summer 2008 - including air and ground transportation, lodging and food.

"I wanted to do something community-service-based," the straight-A student said. "I researched online and this seemed like a good one. My big sister, Sara, now a freshman at George Washington University in D.C., had done a community service project in Montana. That got me thinking. In Cambodia, we spent our first 3 days in Phnom Penh, the capital, followed by 5 days in Kompong Chhnang province, another 10 days in Phnom Penh and our last 4 days in the town of Siem Reap."

The group worked in 3 orphanages and a children's home, a free clinic called the Angkor Hospital, and at the country's Women's Media Center, which provides information to Cambodians about women's issues.

"People walk hours to get to a hospital," Emily observed. At Angkor Hospital, at least, there were places for families to stay, a gardening center and classes were offered about health care and nutrition.

The teens also helped out at the Cambodian Living Arts organization. Emily explained: "During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, its leader, Pol Pot, tried to kill all the educated people and the artists. Dancers, singers, sculptors, painters and potters were rounded up and murdered. When this group finds a 'master' who survived the purge, they're given stipends to teach the arts to a new generation. Many of the surviving artists hid out in faraway villages or the jungles. Students get stipends, too, so parents can afford to give up a bread-winning child."

The trip had its challenges. The hospital was battling an outbreak of Dengue Fever, transmitted by mosquitoes, and two teens in the group became ill. They had a rotten week, but survived. Cambodia's severely malnourished children and elderly often die.

When the teenagers emerged from their sobering trek through that war and famine devastated country, it became the first Putney group to immediately make plans to help the people they'd met.

"We were surprised how much damage was caused by Pol Pot's genocide," said Emily. "Years later, people are still living on 10 cents a day. The stories of the kids got to me and the others on the trip."

Before leaving Cambodia, the teens huddled and decided they had to find a way to help out some of the children they'd met. "The kids had more impact on us than we did on them," mused Emily. "It's amazing to see the drive and desire they have to learn."

Any funds they collect, the teens will give to Cambodia Living Arts and to fund college scholarships to University of Phnom Penn. $250 pays a student's tuition, room and board for an entire school year.

T-shirts could be ordered quickly and cheaply there, so they drafted a quick design and plunked down several hundred dollars for 500 screen-printed T-shirts. They toted the shirts back to the U.S. in their bags and raised $3,000 from their sale.

During the 36-hour plane trip home, the teens set up a nonprofit organization called SPEAKCambodia. "SPEAK" is an acronym for Students Providing Education Access for Kids.

In the U.S., another 500 T-shirts were donated, featuring a similar design. Through a Web site run by one member, Rebecca Luberoff of Massachusetts, the youngsters are selling the shirts for $20 apiece. The Web address is www.speakcambodia.org. Most of the photography on the site was created by Emily.

Though most of the teens are seniors, the plan is to continue fundraising and speaking to peers through their college years. Each summer, they will divide and disperse the funds they've raised.
Using many poignant photos she took on her trip, Emily made her first presentation to a rapt audience at Indian Creek High School on Dec. 12. Math teacher Roy LeDesma invited her to speak.
On Feb. 15, Emily is reprising her talk at Key School at 9:30 a.m. in the school's
Multi-Purpose Building. This isn't all Emily is up to. She's on the board of Key School's Students for Social Change and is a member of the charitable, country-wide student-run organization Raising 4 Reasons. She helps her mother, Leslie Schwartz, organize the annual ALS Artisans Boutique, which raises funds to conquer Lou Gehrig's Disease. Emily tutors other kids at her school and is a Sunday school teacher at Beth Shalom Temple in Arnold.

She also volunteers each weekend in the 5th Floor Joint and Spine Unit at Anne Arundel Medical Center. "I make ice packs and wheel people to and from their rooms," she explained.

Next summer, she'll travel with another Putney Student Travel group - to work among AIDS-stricken women in Malawi.

Emily ultimately wants to be a nurse "focusing in public health. I want to become bilingual in Spanish and work in a free clinic."