Honors junior and Public Health major Eden Katz was trying to raise money to travel to Ghana with Project OKURASE, where she would volunteer with their Village Health Outreach. It seemed the only way she could secure the scholarship was to get college credit for her work; therefore, she assumed, her project would culminate in an academic paper, and nothing more. Yet when she met with Cindy Swenson, director of Project OKURASE and MUSC professor, she learned of a huge problem–literally and metaphorically: the giant piles of trash that resulted from the poor waste management of Okurase, a small Ghanaian village.
With some strategic research, Eden discovered systems for waste management in other rural areas, and soon she had a proposal for the nonprofit put together. Yet when she arrived in Ghana, she was occupied for the first five days by the work that needed to be done at the health clinic. Eden had an idea: she interviewed each of the patients as they left the clinic (with the help of a translator) to better understand their attitudes about waste in their village. The results she found were surprising–many citizens did not see it as a problem. Children even played on these massive mounds of trash (some taller than a house) in their bare feet.
Eden’s summer culminated in a 23-page proposal that was motivated by her dream to one day build playgrounds in the place of these waste mountains. She and Project OKURASE will continue to collaborate to implement her plan.
Read about Eden’s story, in her own words, in College of Charleston Magazine.
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