CHICAGO — For Crystal Dyer, it’s about serving to younger children see the world and dream large.

“Journey helps them see they are often something they dream of,” mentioned Dyer. “They’ll do it.”

Dyer is the founding father of Chicago Austin Youth Journey Adventures—or CAYTA for brief—a non-profit group who units up a wide range of Chicago-area journey adventures with the occasional lengthy distance journey for native youth to partake in.

One such journey was simply completed the place Dyer took 4 Austin-area center college and highschool college students on a two-week journey to Ghana.

“Oh my goodness, it was simply so emotional … having the ability to take 4 youth from the Austin neighborhood on this journey of a lifetime,” Dyer mentioned. “To have the ability to assist them see exterior of the field, to see their future and to find out about their tradition [by getting] on that flight, I really acquired in my seat and cried.”

That is the group’s second journey to Ghana, the primary being held in 2018. Dyer was not capable of attend that journey although as a result of she misplaced her son, Christopher, in an accident on the identical day the journey departed. Friday marked the four-year anniversary of his loss of life. They launched CAYTA collectively in 2015 a number of years after Dyer’s 18-year outdated grandson was shot and killed in Chicago. 

“It was with [Christopher’s] assist that I used to be capable of get this group off the bottom,” Dyer mentioned. “So to be on the airplane and attain this a second time … it’s greater than only a journey.”

Dyer mentioned that CAYTA is fundraising to do one other Ghana journey subsequent yr, with the group internet hosting the Ghana-Once more Competition on Sept. 10 at Austin City Corridor Park. For extra data on the pageant, go to CAYTA’s web site.