In a world full of luxuries and the massive technological advancement that has made life considerably easy to move through, it is difficult for people who are leading their lives conveniently to imagine the fact that some people do not even get basic sanitation and livelihood facilities. For all those who live in big cities, they have no clue about the absence of something as basic as 'soap' in the lives of people. This is exactly what 19 years old Sydney Kamen’s opinion of the world was like. She had no idea about the massive inconvenience some people in this world face and the adverse situations in which they survive. She says that she has been brought up in an environment that provided her with all the convenience and luxuries. It was a major eye opener for her when she got exposed to the lives of people who even had no access to proper cleaning agents, the result of which was that many children in all such areas died before they reached five years of age. She mentioned how this exposure made her realize how privileged she was and also how she had been taking sanitation facilities for granted all her life.
All of this started when she went to Thailand for a service trip during high school, and the exposure to this aspect of the world blew her mind. In her interview with The Dartmouth, she gave credit for this transformation in her soul to this trip and considered it as the experience that inspired her to establish SOAP. She wanted to make it possible for these people to get access to soap for cleaning themselves and making sure that people do not lose their lives because of the inability to acquire access to soap and cleaning agents that keep all kinds of infection and diseases away.
She developed SOAP in 2012, and the main objective was to provide soap to all those communities that have no access to cleaning agents. The way in which soap functions is by gathering all the used soaps from various hotels and recycling them into new ones, which is further distributed among people who are in dire need of such products. The main goal is to reduce waste and then make the best use of it. They have recycled 50000 soaps to fight poor hygiene. SOAP also works to establish a source of sanitation facility for the people who are living in underprivileged communities to improve their lives.
She says that this non-profit organization aims at making sure that children do not have to die because they have no access to soap. She says that the best way to help them is to bring up local solutions for the local problems faced by them.
She feels that this is a simple solution to a problem that can have humongous consequences and all it requires is a small globe of antibacterial glycerin. Her aim was to find a simple solution that would provide this basic need to people and make it possible for them to live hygienic lives and avoid deaths due to the lack of sanitation facilities. The most inspiring aspect of her story is the fact that she dared to not only think about these people but, also make sure that she did all that was required to improve the lives of these people.
(Image Courtesy: 1. Dartmouth, 2. YouTube: YouTube(Featured Image Courtesy)
