They did something about it

THOSE WHO LIVE IN POVERTY carry their burden in many hidden and sometimes not-so-hidden ways.

When I was in high school, I drove a school bus. On cold winter mornings, as I followed my route in the Bethel community, it was sometimes necessary to crack open my window. Some of the students I picked up carried with them pungent evidence that they lived in a home without indoor plumbing no running water, no water heater, no toilet and no bathroom.

It’s difficult to imagine what that must have been like for them. How much harder was it for them to sit in a classroom and try to learn history or math while they lacked the hygiene, comfort and dignity that I took for granted?

Thankfully, help was on the way for children like those on my bus route. Soon, they would benefit from people who understood the plight of rural South Carolinians and did something about it.

People like S.C. Gov. John C. West, who went on poverty tours of the state in the early 1970s and then called for action to help families living in substandard housing.

One of the programs born out of that initiative became known as the Privy Project attaching modular or “snap on” bathrooms to any structurally sound home that lacked the amenity, like the homes on my bus route. Since many of these homes were in rural communities, South Carolina’s electric cooperatives identified members who were candidates for the improvements and helped find funding to bring indoor plumbing to those homes in the 1970s.

Our state and her people have come a long way thanks to electric cooperatives and initiatives like the Privy Project. But even today, there are still neighbors in our communities who are struggling. And thankfully, there are still people willing to help them.

One of the enduring challenges some rural women face is “period poverty,” the lack of access to adequate menstrual products, hygiene facilities, education and other related menstrual resources. Period poverty affects more than 500 million women worldwide. The problem also hits home in South Carolina, where one in five women and girls lives below the federal poverty line, many of them in rural communities.

Imagine if your child or grandchild didn’t have adequate access to the resources she needs as she begins to menstruate. What if she didn’t have a pharmacy nearby, or couldn’t afford the products sold there?

What if, instead of being taught proper hygiene, she was only told to do what was necessary just to make it through the day? What if she had to enter the already difficult stage of adolescence with these added anxieties and stigmas?

Just like Gov. West five decades ago, four students at the University of South Carolina’s Honors College cared enough about the plight of rural South Carolinians to do something about it.

Thrisha Mote, Anusha Ghosh, Jiya Desai and Aastha Arora came up with a solution to period poverty, and their proposal won this year’s Pay It Forward competition. Sponsored by South Carolina’s electric cooperatives, the competition challenges students from Clemson University, S.C. State University and the University of South Carolina to find solutions to pressing social and economic problems that plague South Carolina’s rural areas.

Mote, Ghosh, Desai and Arora each earned $5,000 for their winning proposal, “No Periods Left Behind.” They called for the creation of a community-based nonprofit organization that would provide menstrual products, education and hygiene facilities to rural women experiencing period poverty.

The organization would create partnerships with local businesses, community organizations and government entities to increase access to menstrual products and ensure that all women and girls can manage their periods with dignity. The foursome is using a portion of their prize money to support the Midlands with menstrual product donations. “We don’t plan to drop this project,” says Ghosh, a Greer native.

That kind of spirit is common among co-op folks.

As long as there are electric cooperatives, there will be co-op members who recognize the unnecessary burdens that those around them must carry. As they have for decades, co-op members will take action to make life better for their neighbors.