Date of publication: October 29, 2010
Source: Yes! Magazine
Author: Christa Hillstrom
by Christa Hillstrom
If an anime ninja comes knocking at your door this Halloween talking about the plight of cacao farmers in West Africa, it’s probably Emilie Reitz.
Emilie, a seventh-grader from North Bend, Wash., was shocked when her best friend, Rachel Donka, told her that the Hershey bars and other chocolate products she loved came, in part, from the labor of kids in places like Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Indonesia. “Most people don’t know about this,” she reflected later, “so I wanted to understand what went into the things I used. And I wanted other people to start asking questions, too.”