Tess Smialowicz and Maddie Rootlieb are the founders of the club Forever Free. We sat down with them to have an interview.
What is the club’s mission, and what do you hope to achieve?
The club focuses on youth leadership and peer relationships to spread critical awareness of human trafficking and educate on the topic. The main goal is to enhance student’s knowledge of what human trafficking is and to empower students to use their voices to make real change. We want to raise awareness in our community that will eventually lead to a change globally through the students that we affect.
What are your favorite aspects of the position?
Our favorite aspect of the club is communication and leading our peers. We especially enjoy the planning and communication with other organizations to help at events and support in whatever way we can. The importance of proactivity is necessary to succeed and have a club that is making an active difference. Also, getting our peers involved is a special feeling. The excitement that they experience when making a difference is apparent in their participation and involvement. This involvement takes steps closer to our goal of making a difference.
Where did you get the idea to start the club?
Our founders, Tess Smialowicz and Maddie Rootlieb, have grown up with much knowledge about issues in our community and have been taught ways to address these issues.
Maddie: I traveled to Uganda this summer with an organization called Everfree. They specialize in alleviating trafficking internationally and locally. Growing up, I have traveled to Nepal, Kenya, and Peru with various organizations. I saw the impact of these organizations firsthand, so I was inspired to create change in my community. I hope to one day make a global impact with my future career. By starting this club, I will be able to see the specifics of what goes into leading and operating a program such as this.
Tess: As I have grown older I have realized the multitude of problems our generation faces globally, and with that, I have also recognized the ability I have to help others and change lives. After learning more about human trafficking and realizing the complexity of the problem, the immense number of people it impacts, and the horrors that victims experience, Maddie and I knew that we wanted to make a change. We felt inspired to spread awareness about the topic as there are many misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding human trafficking, but the truth about the problem is not generally well known. For example, realizing that victims are not always kidnapped and forced into human trafficking, but rather vulnerable teens are misled, coerced, and manipulated, reveals it is a much more extensive problem. We have started this club in hopes of spreading awareness, changing our community, and hopefully one day making a difference globally.
