Soap is something I take for granted. If I don’t have any, I can easily and fairly cheaply go to the store and buy some. Heck, if I were extra resourceful, I could even make my own soap like some friends do.
But, while many of us may take soap for granted, it isn’t that way in many parts of the world. Soap is a simple and essential part of fighting diseases, yet many communities are without it.
Derreck Kayongo, a Ugandan war refugee, understood the importance of soap and formed the Global Soap Project. Now Kayongo is not only exhibiting social consciousness by helping his fellow man, he is also being green while doing it.
Global Soap Project collects used soap from hotels all over the U.S. The soap is reprocessed before being shipping to needy nations. How much soap are we talking about? So far, Global Soap Project has collected 100 tons of soap for recycling.
The project started in 2009 with just Kayongo in his Atlanta basement, but has grown to include hundreds of volunteers and 300 hotels helping out. They sort the soap by scents. The volunteers used to pull of questionable sections of each bar of soap with a potato peeler, but now they can put the soap in a machine that will strip it, just leaving the core. That is broken down into dust. Water is added and the mixture is put back into the machine, which compressed it. Then, the long bar is cut into smaller pieces.
Last summer, Kayongo delivered the non-profit’s first box of recycled soap to orphans in Kenya. The trip was personally significant to Kayongo since he himself had been a refugee in Kenya. He said “I knew I needed to give back” after seeing all the suffering there.
Giving the soap has multiple affects on the community. It helps protect them from diseases, so it improves health, but it also shows them someone cares. Kayongo calls it “a remarkable gift.”