{"id":26386,"date":"2017-10-20T03:39:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T10:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=26386"},"modified":"2017-10-19T23:46:21","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T06:46:21","slug":"promoting-sanitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/10\/20\/promoting-sanitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoting sanitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A handwashing workshop in the village of Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, India. Sydney Kamen started SOAP in 2012, with the goal of cutting in half the number of children under the age of 5 who die around the world from diarrhea and respiratory infections. (photo from Sydney Kamen)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Every year, 1.8 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhea and respiratory infections. This number could be cut in half with proper sanitation and handwashing \u2013 which is precisely the goal of a 20-year-old Jewish woman from Washington, D.C., Sydney Kamen.<\/p>\n

Kamen is working to achieve this target via the nongovernmental organization SOAP (So Others Are Protected), which she established in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you reduce the number of cases and number of deaths, then you reduce the burden on the international public health system … and that funding can go elsewhere to build infrastructure, etc.,\u201d Kamen told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s inspiring to me to think about the incredible impact one simple solution could have on a global scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in a Reform Jewish home that stressed community service, Kamen is a junior at Dartmouth College, majoring in geography with a minor in global health and ethics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in middle school,\u201d she said, \u201cI was in a club and it was about girls\u2019 education. We partnered with this school in Kenya. Once a week, we\u2019d Skype with them and get to know each other. That was my first exposure to the different life experiences of my age group around the world\u2026. It became girls\u2019 and women\u2019s health later, which really segued into this world of global health and wealth disparities … which then led me to the field of development, where I am now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In high school, Kamen joined a team of college students in rural Thailand to study marginalized, at-risk youth on the Thailand-Myanmar border.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does a white, Jewish girl from Georgetown know about not having access to clean water or not having access to sanitation?\u201d said Kamen. \u201cNothing at all. So, this was a very eye-opening experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamen stayed with a host-family in which the mother worked as a nurse clinician at a small rural health clinic. The host-mom explained how frustrating it was to see so many kids coming into the clinic with diarrhea and respiratory infections, but not being equipped to help \u2013 there was not enough access to sanitation.<\/p>\n

In this remote community, which was, in a sense, an unofficial refugee camp, the people repurposed many things made from plastic and found ways to reuse many items. So, when Kamen came to them with the idea of repurposing unused shards of soap from local hotels, the idea was well-received.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first arrived in Thailand, I was staying at a hotel, getting acclimated,\u201d said Kamen. \u201cI used to always bring home the soap, shampoo and conditioner. And then, I was exposed to this disparity and was told that, no, they don\u2019t have soap. I thought, this is a problem \u2026 perhaps with a very simple solution. Simple things are sometimes the hardest things to identify, just because they are so simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that took some time to come together. It was something I felt strongly about and it was an issue that I saw as a grave injustice. I think access to sanitation is a human right. Of course, this is not something unique to rural Thailand, it\u2019s a global problem \u2013 lack of access to sanitation is a huge problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw this as something well worth exploring. I came home and started talking to people in Washington about it \u2026 and it all came from that. It was definitely a collaborative effort and it\u2019s something that\u2019s very important. You can\u2019t make big changes alone. It\u2019s all about the collaborative group effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamen made the link between the hotels and the community and created a win-win situation. The hotel reduced its disposal costs and the community created a business from the repurposed soap. So far, 13 communities and 14 hotels have joined the project and each community has their own way of making it work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about community ownership,\u201d said Kamen. \u201cThat\u2019s very important to me. Some communities recycle it one way and do different things with it, and others do other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the hotel reaches a sufficient amount of collected soap, the shards are transported to SOAP\u2019s partner communities who then recycle the shards by melting and reshaping them. Ultimately, the product is used to promote sanitation and handwashing in the communities.<\/p>\n

Besides providing a platform to support sustainable economic growth and financial independence, this initiative is also helping train women in business, building cooperatives, as well as offering the women some funds to learn about sanitation and how to clean the soap bars. This allows them to become health ambassadors of a sort in the community.<\/p>\n

To date, more than 50,000 bars of soap have been distributed.<\/p>\n

As for Kamen, while she hopes to one day work full-time on the project, her current goal, she said, is to \u201clearn my place in this field and how to do it to the best of my ability … and to do so humbly and mindfully. Something I\u2019ve become hyper-sensitive to as a student is the \u2018white saviour complex\u2019 … and I\u2019m fearful of it becoming a part of my efforts, as I see [it] very prominently in other development initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn school,\u201d she added, \u201cmy hope is to become aware and knowledgeable of these practices as much as possible. But, my role now is to support the partnerships that have already been made.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, it\u2019s a very simple solution to a very large problem. This soap model, if you will, is very mobile. It\u2019s easily tailored to meet community needs, which is very important to me. I want it to be a self-ownership type of thing, where communities support each other and do it themselves. It\u2019s not a hand out. It\u2019s not some white young American going over and teaching people how to wash their hands because there\u2019s this \u2018primitive\u2019 divide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interest in Kamen\u2019s idea is growing in general, but most important to her is that one of her partner communities has reached out, saying they want to establish something like this in the community next door.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was their own initiative, not something I sought out to implement, which, to me, is the whole point,\u201d said Kamen. \u201cHopefully, the ownership is assumed by the people who need it and the people who benefit from it. That\u2019s all that matters to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Kamen was named one of the 15 recipients of the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was incredibly honoured and excited,\u201d she said. \u201cThe kind of support that award offers is incredible and generous. At the same time, as wonderful as this attention is, I think it\u2019s important you do something good with it. It feels great, but it\u2019s easy to get caught up in the accolades and what other people see and want for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to share this story, but, also, I want to encourage my peers to learn about some of these global issues and think more deeply about our actions \u2013 especially those interested in development or international volunteerism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her international development studies, Kamen found out that the U.S. military is one of the largest humanitarian actors in the world. As a Dartmouth student, she had the opportunity to become a reserve officer training corps cadet, which she opted to take to learn about the army.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with the image of the military being a bunch of uneducated white guys who were trigger-happy and oil-hungry … which is not the case,\u201d said Kamen. \u201cThis was the image I grew up with culturally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI figured it was time to learn the system from the inside and to humanize it. You can read all about the military and army in books, and you can talk to people about it, but why not try and understand it through experience? So, I joined the program with the hope of learning how it works and learning how they train future generations of leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a part of it for just over two years now, and love what I\u2019ve learned. The whole experience has been very humbling. I\u2019ve learned about patriotism and what it means to serve, especially from my peers. But, I haven\u2019t signed my contract yet, and that\u2019s something I\u2019m thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about SOAP, visit the NGO\u2019s website, soothersareprotected.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A handwashing workshop in the village of Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, India. Sydney Kamen started SOAP in 2012, with the goal of cutting in half the number of children under the age of 5 who die around the world from diarrhea and respiratory infections. (photo from Sydney Kamen) Every year, 1.8 million children under the age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7474,7473,1959],"class_list":["post-26386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-sanitation","tag-sydney-kamen","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}