With an estimated 24.9 million victims globally at any given time, human traffickers are known to prey on both vulnerable minors and adults. Alarmingly, more than 57% of all juvenile prostitution arrests are youth of color from underserved communities. To date, Florida is ranked third with the highest human trafficking statistics behind Texas and California.

Recognizing that human trafficking is a significant threat to inner city youth, students in the YMCA of South Florida’s Teen Broadway, an enrichment literacy program focused on the arts in assisting and educating students to develop life skills, such as problem-solving, team building, collaboration, creativity, public speaking and pre/post media production, present Adamma the Enlightening, a play they will direct and perform in to provide a realistic view of the lives of victims and survivors of human trafficking. This play provides a curated version of real-life stories of real victims and survivors, and all Teen Broadway participants have assisted in writing, directing, producing and set designing for live performances.

“Adamma is a modern-day version of Annie. It’s a community story that happened in 2019 that the kids chose to talk about,” YMCA of South Florida’s Family Services Program Director Sharon Hughes said. “We want to bring awareness to a huge problem in many communities.”

Adamma the Enlightening will be on stage in the Victory Black Box Theatre at the L.A. Lee YMCA/Mizell Community Center, 1409 NW 6th Street in Fort Lauderdale, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19. Tickets begin at $10. For tickets and information visit https://bit.ly/3gPM8tK. The performance is suitable for ages 8 and up.

The YMCA of South Florida’s Teen Broadway production team includes Hughes, creator/writer; Garrin Decembre, teen director; and Jahziah Defoe, teen assistant director.

“This live production is a change maker because it provides a realistic aspect to the lives’ of victims and survivors of human trafficking,” Hughes added. “Our curated version of storytelling provides bias free and data driven context, oftentimes mainstream media creates a custom narrative to fit their storyline. However, this production adopts the real-life stories of real victims and survivors of human trafficking.”

Partners are Broward Sheriff’s Office, SMTH, ELITE and Haynes Harbour. Sponsors are Chef Pat’s, Black Window, RoseGold Beauty Co. and MZD Enterprise.

Reporting human trafficking is confidential. If you see something, say something by calling the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.