A Roslyn High School sophomore, with support from the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island is embarking on a campaign to provide Malawians with pill bottles.
Matthew Berman, 16 of Roslyn Heights won EHSLI’s first Long Island Young Activist Award of $500.
According to Lyn Dobrin, a representative of EHSLI, doctors in Malawi prescribe pills to patients in scrap pieces of papers due to scarce resources.
EHSLI chose Matthew’s project called M.E.D. Rx—Medication, Education and Disposal Bottle Repurposing out of an application of seven.
“I have always been interested in medicine and health care, which is where the idea for this project stemmed from” Matthew said.
Matthew said there are many problems attributed to disposal of pill bottles as well as drug use which nudged him to apply for the grant.
Matthew’s campaign comprises of multiple components from environmental issues, pollution, drug disposal and use.
“I know it has a lot of moving parts,” Matthew’s mother, Susan Berman said. “That’s why we’re so proud of him.”
Matthew said when he came up with the idea, his parents were instrumental in connecting him to the different organizations and people but he spoke to them himself.
He’s working with Project Malawi, a humanitarian organization in Indianapolis, that processes and ships pill bottles to Malawi.
On Feb. 25, Malawi Project posted on their Facebook page that they’ve processed and shipped more than 2 million pill bottles to Malawi and that they won’t be accepting any more.
But Matthew wasn’t discouraged.
He said he called the director of the organization and they were so impressed with his program, they decided they were going to make an exception.
“I managed to get the number of the director and I spoke with him,” Berman said. “And he said they were going to ship my bottles.”
Alison Pratt, who spearheaded the creation of the grant said the Humanist Society wanted to extend its ethical morale to younger people.
“We wanted to create a program for kids, since they’re the future to develop campaigns on subjects of peace, social change or even environmental change,” Pratt said.
The empty prescription bottles can be dropped Sid Jacobson JCC in East Hills, Harbor Hill Pharmacy on Glen Cove Road, and the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island in Garden City.
Bottles with unwanted or expired medicine in them can be brought to the Town of North Hempstead’s STOP Program at Michael J Tully Park, Sunday April 9 between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Nassau County middle or high school students can apply for the grant which is awarded once a year by designing a social action project for the betterment of humankind.
Dobrin said the grant is “seed money” to get the project underway.
