Local woman raising funds to take Austin youth to Africa

Zenaida Owusu-Young, 17, looks forward to connecting with her Ghanaian heritage by way of a trip to Africa that was made possible by Crystal Dyer, a board member of the Austin Chamber of Commerce. 

“This is an opportunity to connect with my Ghanaian heritage,” Zenaida said. “I’m also looking forward to enjoying the food. Having Ghanaian food in Chicago is one thing but to have it there is a whole different thing.”

The opportunity to travel to Africa could be life-changing for a lot of youth and will also broaden her own horizon, she added.

The trips to Africa are part of Dyer’s Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures nonprofit. August marks the 10-year anniversary of the organization and the fifth year that Dyer has taken youth from the West Side and other parts of the city to the continent.

“The organization was founded as a career and culture program to provide youth an opportunity to travel outside the boundaries of their community and for them to learn about careers and cultures worldwide,” Dyer said.

The organization essentially, is an anti-violence program Dyer created following the death of her grandson to gun violence.

“My grandson was a victim of gun violence in 2011,” Dyer said, recalling the tragedy.  “Five days after his 18th birthday he was murdered. He was just an innocent bystander who went to a birthday party. There had been an argument before he got there and the people came back shooting. He had just walked through the door. He was the only fatality and some were injured and in the hospital for over two months. To this day, they never found the people who did it.”

After retiring from AT&T, Dyer started a career as a travel advisor and traveled the world with her clients. God, she said, sent her a message to use those skills to help youth learn about the world and stay out of trouble.

“I opened a storefront on Chicago Avenue on the 5900 block and started off just taking youth on local field trips with donations and then I was using proceeds from my travel company as it grew,” Dyer said.  “I founded my [youth] organization in 2015 and by 2018 I was volunteering at the juvenile detention center on Ogden Avenue working with youth trying to help them see that they have a future despite their circumstances.”

The more she interacted with people from Africa and sent clients from her travel company to Africa, Dyer said she got a message from God to use those skills to help the youth have a life changing experience.

“A lot of the kids have not been off the block so to go to another continent. …,” she said. “We made our first trip to Ghana in August of 2018.”

This year’s trip is scheduled for June 17 with 12 young people signed up to go.

All the expenses for the trip to Accra, Ghana is by way of fundraising and word-of-mouth donations from businesses and people Dyer is already acquainted with. Donations are accepted at https://givebutter.com/K7vPCn

Dyer was able to get a scholarship for Owusu-Young to cover most of her expenses for the trip.

As of Saturday, $25,000 had been raised in total. With the trip date so close, the focus is on raising the remaining $20,000 that’s needed by the end of May.

The 14-to-15-hour flight has a connection in the U.S. or another country and then on to Ghana.

Dyer’s organization, she said, is not just about traveling to Africa, it’s about helping kids every day.

“My organization is a free program so any youth can enroll,” said Dyer. “They have to be 14 to 19 for the scholarship. To go on the trip, they have to be 14 to 24.”

For youth who’ve experienced Ghana in the past, it opened their eyes to their responsibility to themselves, to their families and to the world, Dyer said.

“The way it is now, with what people call a microwave society with social media, everything just closes in and becomes about you the individual,” Dyer said. “When they go to a country like this and interact with the kids there and the different people, they learn how committed the people are to their duty to excel. They’re also very committed to their religion. Some are Muslim and there are Christians too.”

Dyer added how the young people there are so wise beyond their years.

“They have the wisdom of their ancestors and they believe that doing good for others will bring good to them,” she said. I named the trip ‘Juneteenth with Our Ancestors.’

The group will spend time at the slave dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast.

Built in 1482 by Portuguese traders, Elmina Castle was the first European slave-trading post in all of sub-Saharan Africa. Elmina, like other West African slave fortresses, housed luxury suites for the Europeans in the upper levels. The slave dungeons below were cramped and filthy, each cell often housing as many as 200 captured Africans at a time, without enough space to even lie down.

“We’ll be there for two nights including Juneteenth (June 19),” Dyer said of what is a very emotional experience. “From there, we go north to Kente Village and to Kumasi where the Ghanaian royalty lives.  We’re also going to Tamale where the slave trade started. This is the first trip where we’re going to that city.”

They’ll also spend time at the game reserves and have an opportunity to learn drumming.

African drumming has been a vital part of African societies for centuries, weaving together social, spiritual, and artistic aspects, a way of communicating.

Dorcas Owusu, Zenaida’s mother, said the trip will be a wonderful first-hand experience with all the sites they’ll visit.

“Her great, great, great grandmother and grandfather are from Elmina and Cape Coast,” Owusu said.  “She’s never been there so I thought it would be great for her as she wraps up her high school years to get in tune with who she is. Even though we’ve always instilled it in her, there’s nothing like being there on the ground.”