The civil war was truly horrific. Most people lost their lives. 90% of the houses.
. . were burned down.
I don't want my children to become diamond miners. I do it for my children, but it's so hard. I'm fighting for them, they are my only reason.
My biggest motivation is my children. The workers you see behind me are searching for those diamonds we often admire in shop windows or wear, or give as gifts for the most special occasions. Now, would you ever have imagined that the most precious stone on the planet is sought by the poorest hands in the world?
This morning, they told me that if I don’t find anything, there will be no food for me. I have to find a diamond. But if I find nothing, I get whipped and I’m not given food.
My name is Giuseppe and I have a mission: to travel the world to meet the most extraordinary people on the planet and ask them a simple question: What is happiness to you? Welcome to the “PROGETTO HAPPINESS” We are in Koidu, a name that probably means nothing to you. But from this city, located in the heart of Sierra Leone, the most precious diamonds on the planet have been extracted, in fact, it’s also nicknamed "The Diamond City.
" And we are here to discover who the true seekers of the most precious stone for humankind are. The history of Koidu’s diamonds began in the 1930s, when farmers accidentally found strange, glittering stones. Soon after, miners and mining companies from every corner of the planet poured into Sierra Leone to turn the country into one of the richest diamond deposits in the world.
However, this great discovery, along with wealth and hope, also brought violence. And so it didn’t take long for the diamonds of Providence to turn into blood diamonds, especially during the Sierra Leonean civil war, when they were used to finance rebel factions. Today, the war is a distant memory, but Koidu continues to be a city of miracles, where hundreds of diamond traders traffic the world's most precious stones.
We are about to meet “the commander,” as the leader of the traders here is called, to better understand how the diamond business works, and then reach the source, the diamond seekers. These are 5 pieces. These 5 pieces are 10 carats with 48% purity.
When we find a stone like this, we weigh it. And if it’s at least 4 carats, we must ensure it respects the 4 “C’s” of diamonds: the carat, the color, the clarity, and the cut. We use a lens to establish the quality of the diamond to ensure whether there are any impurities.
We try to detect black and red, iron, and sulfurous spots. Do you remember the time when these diamonds were used in the civil war? Yes, I remember it well.
You know, the rebels used these diamonds to fund the war. When they came here, they made sure to erase every trace of life from Kono. The civil war was truly horrific.
Most people here lost their lives. To help you understand better, the entire city was razed to the ground. 90% of the houses were burned down.
It’s not easy for the commander to talk about the civil war, and noticing the emotion in his eyes, we decide to turn off the cameras. However, he tells us with a certain disillusionment that the diamonds have made him and his people sick, as they dedicate entire lives to frantically searching for them. With great caution, I ask if it’s possible to enter one of the dozens of mines in the city to talk to the seekers.
And surprisingly, the commander agrees. I believe that our curiosity made the commander like us, allowing us to visit some of his mines with his right-hand man, without whom it would have been impossible for us to enter. Everything here is controlled.
Obviously, you can’t mess around with diamonds. It’s an important business in which everyone works, men, women, and children, every day. So you have to imagine that Koidu is really just a village within a vast mine where everyone is involved.
The diamond seekers in this area advised us not to go beyond this limit, because the stone wall you see behind me is the border, the barrier between this artisanal mine and a mine managed, protected, and controlled by a multinational. Multinational mining companies are digging in that area, which they will abandon, and then the artisans will advance and try to find any remaining diamonds. Yes, here in Koidu, diamond extraction is a family business for households, with even children involved in the extraction process.
Poverty and the lack of other opportunities push all family members to work together to survive. Every single day, they wake up at dawn and go to the mines, hoping to find that precious stone that could change their lives. But it won’t happen, because the land they have access to has already been sifted through by international mining companies which, of course, with their machinery, manage to extract most of the diamonds from the richest deposits.
Once the work is done, they will abandon the land, leaving behind little more than sand and gravel. Diamond mining allows us to survive, but it’s tough, really tough. At least they earn something.
I absolutely don't want my children to become diamond miners. I’m fighting for them. I want them to receive a high-quality education at the highest level.
I do all this work and dirty my hands to make them study. I don’t want them to end up like me. I’m here for my children, but it’s tough.
I’m fighting for them, they are my only reason. My biggest motivation is my children. All of this.
The boys just found a small raw diamond, which to my eyes doesn't even look like a diamond, because it’s “dirty,” but in reality, they’re explaining to me that the color of this diamond is orange, it just needs to be cleaned, and then they’ll figure out by bringing it to the shops in the village of Koidu, they’ll figure out how much it’s worth. What’s the biggest diamond you’ve ever found in your life? In my entire life?
I found one that was seven carats. Seven carats? Yes, seven carats.
One of four carats, I found one that was five carats. One of nine carats, but it wasn’t a clean diamond. That was the last diamond I found, and I’m searching for another now.
I want a bigger one this time. It might seem like a lucky day for someone, but these small diamonds are sold in town for about five to ten dollars each, just enough to feed your family. Beautiful!
With this lens, you can see it, appreciate it much better, but when you look at it like this, you think, "Well, you understand why man goes mad. . .
for a stone. " Beautiful! Yes, beautiful!
I still didn’t know, though, that what I had seen so far was nothing. Just outside the city lies one of Koidu’s largest illegal mines. A place hidden from the eyes of the world, where the working conditions are extremely dangerous.
Getting in here is not easy at all. They are well guarded to prevent external interference. What we manage to document with our cameras, however, is not easy to describe in words.
Around us, there are very young children who are forced to help their parents search for diamonds. The number of children is very high, because families prefer to keep everything they find within the family. If they had to pay a worker, they would have to split the day's earnings with people outside the family.
But instead, unfortunately, if they get help from the children, as you can see, even the little ones, all the earnings stay within the family, and they can eat more, and have a slightly better standard of living. Under the scorching sun, they carry heavy sacks of gravel all day long to other children. Often, their own siblings, who will sift it in search of diamonds.
It’s interesting to know that this land actually belongs to no one, because it’s the waste from large multinational industries that have exploited this land for years and then abandoned it. Once abandoned, however, all the locals, all the illegal workers, come here to resift all this land and search for the tiniest speck of diamond or gold that might be here, which can feed them for a day. But the most important thing to know is that all these people are divided into gangs.
Actually, gang means family. These are groups of people who divide a part of this land and dig, sift, and then bring all this land to the pond that was created during the rainy season, during the floods. They use that water to wash this gravel and hope to find the small diamond that changes their life.
Faced with all these children working under the sun, I don’t have the courage to complain, but I assure you, the conditions are extreme. It must be 40 degrees, it's three in the afternoon, and these children work without stopping, it’s incredible. The children seem very tired, but curious about our cameras, they chat with us, telling us about their work.
When we get here, if there is no dirt to wash, we carry it from up there. We load it up and bring it here to wash. My friend sifts the dirt while I wash it.
And when we find a diamond, we run to town to sell it. Emanuel. Yes?
What would you do if you found a big diamond right now? I’d give it to my mother right away. For what?
To sell it! So we could build ourselves a real house. Because after carrying heavy sacks, my neck hurts, and when I get home, I don’t even have a bed to rest on.
I work in the mines because I’m an orphan. I lost both my parents. I have no other options, but I’m sure I’ll find a diamond and go back to school to study.
How do you feel when you find a diamond? I feel happy. Do you feel happy?
Yes. Because when we find a diamond, it means we have money to eat. I work with my aunt, my mother is at home sick.
I do everything to help her: in the morning, I go to the mines and carry sacks, wash the gravel, and if I find a diamond, I sell it and give the money to my mother to buy medicine. We work every day under the sun to carry the gravel to be washed. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, when we find a diamond, I sell it to feed my children.
Other times, we find nothing, and so I have to borrow money to buy something to feed my children. It’s a difficult situation, my children don’t deserve this. When we are submerged here all day, it’s not good because, when we get home in the evening, they start to feel cold.
And I have to rush to find medicine for them. You don’t know how hard I’ve fought before finding this diamond. I was digging while my children carried the gravel.
Once all of it was washed, I used the sieve to find it. Now I can sell it to survive and buy something for us to eat. It’s very small and not worth much.
What’s the value, more or less? It’s not even worth 2€. How often do you find these diamonds?
I don’t find diamonds every day. Sometimes I work here all day and find nothing. Children grow up inside these mines, and the older they get, the more they understand where those diamonds they search for end up.
Every diamond we find is for the whites. The whites know the value of the diamond better than us, and they are the ones who enjoy the diamonds. Do you know it’s very valuable?
Yes, yes! Do you know? Yes!
But the whites know better than us. And if you found a big diamond today, what would you do? I’d be happy.
Yes, I’d be happy because. . .
if I have the diamond, I’ll sell it. These are definitely the most difficult missions for me to experience, because they slap reality in your face. The reality is that we are all already happy, but we don’t realize it, we have everything and we don’t know it.
And so, even though this story might seem far from the concept of happiness, well, it’s right here that we learn what it is, and right here that we create those building blocks that help us understand what happiness is in the world. Yes, even in a difficult context like this, happiness can still find a way through. There’s hope to change things: thanks to people like Suleman, who is a manager at ActionAid in Sierra Leone and perfectly embodies this hope.
Every day, with courage and dedication, he works to rescue as many children as possible from the mines, offering them a better future. His story is proof that even in the midst of these difficulties, there is the possibility of change. He knows very well what it’s like to work here, because as a child he was a diamond seeker too.
You know very well how difficult this work is. Yes. What do those children feel, since you were one of them?
Yes. Very often in the mines, you don’t eat, I experienced that. You don’t eat, and there’s no potable water to drink.
When you go to those water ponds, you try to drink the water like this. “Permission, hygiene. Permission, hygiene.
” That’s what we used to say. You scoop the water with your hands, drink it, and spend the rest of the day with just that. Sometimes, for example, in the group I worked with, if you made a mistake, even a small one, you’d get whipped.
Yeah, because I worked with adults, and I was the youngest. How old were you? I was between eight and ten years old.
The same age. . .
Yes, as this boy. Yes, when I started, I was even younger than him. Yes.
You know. . .
How much does one of those weigh? The weight of the sacks varies. When it's full, it weighs around 25 kilos, but it also varies depending on the person carrying it.
Kombà's sack weighs between 15 to 20 kilos. The sack of this boy, the one you see, can weigh around 25 kilos. So he'll carry this.
Yes, this big one. While Kombà will carry that one. Can I try Kombà’s sack?
Yes, go ahead! Give him something to cover his head. I'm sure I won't even be able to lift it.
Can he do it on his own? No, they help him. Can you help me?
Yes, yes. I just want to understand. .
. The weight. .
. . what he does every day.
Yes. Put it on your head. Okay.
It's for the hair, put it on your head. What should I do? Okay?
Yes. Go, go, go. .
. Yes! Where should I go?
Over there. Walk with him, Kombà! This is Kombà’s load.
Put it down, put it down. Everyone’s laughing here, but. .
. I’m the one not laughing because I really understand what it means, it's very heavy. So heavy!
And he does it every day. Every day. Every day, every morning.
I have no words. Put it down. It’s really heavy.
Help him! Help him! You know, it’s funny but.
. . Yes.
It’s not, it’s not. You’ve felt what Kombà feels. You’re strong, you’re really strong.
That’s why if you notice, their physical development is different from that of a child living a normal life. If you know Kombà's age. .
. How old are you now? 13 years old.
13 years old, if you look at a 13-year-old child living in the city, you’ll see that they’re taller and more developed than Kombà. Oh really? But because of the work he's doing, Kombà’s body doesn’t develop normally.
His growth is stunted compared to a child living a comfortable or affluent life. This is one of the consequences of mining on children. It affects their growth.
But if he doesn’t do this, and his family works without Kombà, he won’t be able to eat today. Really? Yes, this is like a kind of rule for all the miners.
It was the same for me. This is what Kombà and his family do every day. This mine is not for children.
This is not a job for them. This is child exploitation. You just saw it there, you know what it feels like to carry even just 10 kilos of sand from here to the washing point or for three or four kilometers.
This is what these child workers do every day. They make 20 to 30 trips. What can we do to stop all of this?
We support them to take them out of the mines. I am an example, today I am here on the ActionAid staff. I was educated, I went to university, I received an education, and I’m proud of myself.
But coming to these places and seeing our colleagues, our younger brothers, our relatives. . .
because in Sierra Leone it’s like we’re one big family. Seeing them go through all of this makes me want to cry. We have to do something to stop all of this.
You know, even explaining all of this makes me emotional. I know. You have to be strong and man enough not to let yourself go, but.
. . It’s very sad.
I think it’s time to join forces to put an end to all of this. We must stop all of this! At the end of the shift, we receive a truly unexpected invitation.
I’m going to Kombà's house, to his family. It surprises me a lot that they haven't done anything today, and maybe they won’t eat, yet they invited us to their home to offer us something, just enough to make us feel at home, and it’s touching and also curious to see where these people live, where Kombà lives, where he spends his daily life, and we are just about to enter his home. This should be Kombà’s home, it's made of mud and sticks, like all the others around, and we’re about to enter.
This is our room. I live here with Kombà and my wife with my small children. There are six of us in this room.
As you can see, this is our bed on the ground, it’s where we lie down to sleep. How many people sleep here? There are six of us on this bed.
Six! ? Six.
six people, six people sleep here. Six people! How do you all fit in?
We lie down like this. Kombà, come here. Wow.
. . it's really small.
Come! You see, curious. I’m curious to see because.
. . six people, how can they?
This is how we lie down. Another child here, another here, my wife here, and I’m here because I’m the head of the family. But I want to try to understand what Kombà thinks about his job.
I don’t think it’s a job for children because if you work all day in the mines, you can’t go to school. And if you keep going, that will be the only thing you’ll know how to do. Plus, many die there.
The sacks are too heavy, and we carry them long distances, from where we load the gravel to where we empty it. There's a lot of ground to cover. I have to work in the mine to survive, otherwise, I’ll have nothing to eat at home if I don’t go.
But it’s hard because when it rains, we have to work wet, and when it’s hot, we have to work under the sun. Plus, the water we work in is dangerous, and we don’t have food or drinking water. What is a diamond to you?
For adults, it’s something important, but not for everyone. To me, the diamond is just a stone. If we find a big diamond, we know it can change our lives.
We would go from poverty to great fortune, and I could go to school. What is happiness to you? I get emotional when I can see my friends, my family, but above all, being alive makes me happy.
Because many people have died, and I’m still alive, so I’m very happy. Even when I go to work every day, I’m happy because at least I have my life. What do you dream of becoming when you grow up?
I want to become President. I want to help children who don’t go to school, orphans, and children like me. I want to help all my friends who can’t go to school, and I want to help them study.
Kombà’s words resonate as a universal call. No child should work in the mines, no child should sacrifice their childhood to survive. It hurts me deeply to immerse myself in the lives of these children, but Suleman gives me hope.
His mission with ActionAid is to change all of this and build a future where every child has the right to go to school, to play, to learn, and to dream big. And before we say goodbye, he wants to show me that all these children can be helped, and he takes me to visit the school that ActionAid built thanks to child sponsorships. This is the hope we give them.
We want to show them that they can leave the mines through education, and we are ready to help them. And this is what we do every day, every week, every year as ActionAiders. We give them support, we give them hope, especially to the children in the mines.
You’re not destined to stay there forever. Your life can change through schools like this. For a long time now, we’ve been documenting with ActionAid the harsh reality of child labor with the goal of raising awareness and encouraging action.
And once again, we’ve seen that being a child in Sierra Leone and in many other parts of the world where children are exploited means growing up too fast. These children should have the opportunity to live a happy childhood, to go to school, to explore the world with curiosity and joy. They should have the right to be educated, to play, to grow up in a safe and loving environment.
And yet, for many of them, these things remain distant dreams, lost in the gravel of the mines. And what I want to tell you today is that even though we are far away, this reality concerns us. The privilege we live in every day gives us the responsibility to do something, to act.
We can make a difference, we can give these children a better future, we can give them the hope they deserve. Let’s remember Kombà and all the children fighting to survive. Let’s commit to making sure their stories change, their voices are heard, and their lives improve.
Through child sponsorship with ActionAid, we can truly change their lives. Every sponsored child is a child with a new chance. A future no longer defined by suffering, but by hope.
We must do it because these children deserve much more than a life of hardship for a precious stone. They deserve a childhood and they deserve a future. Sponsor a child today.
Change their life forever, and yours too.
