Category: Insight

The unemployment rate in Williamsburg County has hovered around 12 percent in recent years. That’s 16^th highest in the state. Also, this summer the county’s school district received a failing grade on the elementary and middle school end-of-year Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS) test. Those are some of the reasons the county is engaged in a strategic planning process that County Supervisor, Stanley Pasley, and county residents hope will help to bring new industry and jobs to the County and improve the County overall. The County hired a strategic planning firm, Boyette Strategic Advisors, of Little Rock, AR, to lead the development of the plan. Over the past few months, the County has held a town-hall-type “visioning” session during which citizens shared what they’d like to see emphasized in the plan. Residents were also able to offer input online, but that option is no longer available. The first phase of the plan is expected to be ready for review by late October or early November. On the current edition of Insight, Bhakti Larry Hough, interviews Pasley about the strategic planning process.

You can hear Insight every Wednesday and Monday, at 10:00 AM, 7:00 PM and midnight, at 90.9 FM, Radio Baha'i.

The world is becoming more of a global village every day as thousands of people living in one part of the world move to other parts to live and work. For Americans, most of whom trace their heritage to some other place of the globe, this mobility and immigration create the phenomenon of Americans having very close familial, social and professional ties to other people and places in the world. One such place is Haiti. Gabrielle Griggs of Hemingway is a native of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who has lived in the United States for eight years. Griggs’ niece, Nehemie Desulme’, also of Port-au-Prince, is visiting  her. On the current edition of Insight, Bhakti Larry Hough interviews the two woman about their dual love of America and their homeland, the anxiety they feel when there are political upheavals or natural disasters that affect their relatives and friends in their native land, and the state of Haiti since the 2010 earthquake that killed thousands of people.

You can hear this program on Radio Baha'i, 90.9 FM, Monday, September 10th, at 10:00 AM, 7:00 PM, and midnight.

When you think about films and filmmakers, you’re likely to also think of Hollywood, not the Plantersville community of Georgetown County, SC. That, however, is where independent filmmaker DeShantell Singleton lives and works. During a three-year stint in Los Angeles, where she was pursuing a career in front of the camera, the 20-something Singleton discovered what she really wanted to do: Work behind the camera as a producer, director and writer of her own films.

“I wanted to tell on film the stories that I felt needed to be told,” Singleton told Bhakti Larry Hough during an interview for Insight. “Inspiring stories help dispel stereotypes, inspire and elevate.”

Singleton said she particularly wants to work with and reach youth with her film art in order to encourage them to consider life paths that they may have thought were off limits to them. She has one short film to her credit, Before He Fell, and is currently working on her second, La Nanita, which tells the story of a defense attorney whose good intentions backfire after defending a woman on trial for the death of her son. She has received an Indie Grant from the SC Film Commission to help complete the project, but has also started an online fundraising campaign.

Listen to the interview with DeShantell Wednesday, Aug. 29th, at 10:00 am, 7:00pm, and midnight, or on Monday, Sept. 3rd, at the same times.

If you didn’t know any better, upon walking into the Freedom Reader’s site in Conway, you might question whether any learning is going on. The people here – adults and children – are having too much fun.

The music is pumping and one child, who looks to be about 8 years old, is dancing. While the aim of the program is to always make learning fun, today’s session is a little different; it’s a celebration of the accomplishments the children in the program have made during the summer session. One can rest assured, however, that these children and their tutors are serious about at least one thing – reading.

The mission of Freedom Readers, Inc. is to improve reading skills in low wealth communities by providing one-to-one literacy tutoring, free books for home libraries, and an inspiring, high-energy learning environment.

In the current edition of Insight, which is a short feature, Bhakti Larry Hough visits the Freedom Readers site at Huckabee Heights in Conway and speaks with founder and executive director Tracy Bailey, students and tutors.

On the current edition of Insight, Bhakti Larry Hough speaks with Mark Johnson, the spokesperson for LifePoint, the designated Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) for organ recovery services in South Carolina. LifePoint actively provides organ, tissue and ocular donor services to 62 hospitals throughout the state.

The need for organ donors has never been greater. Presently, there are more than 110,000 people on the national waiting list who need a life-saving organ transplant. Approximately 1,000 of those people are registered in South Carolina. Some of them die each day because the organs that could save their lives never become available.

South Carolina ranks second in the United States in the need for kidney transplants among African-Americans. Kidney failure is four times more likely to affect African-Americans than Whites. High blood pressure and diabetes increase the risk of kidney failure.

This edition of Insight airs Wednesday, August 15th, and Monday, August 20th, at 10:00 AM, 7:00 PM, and Midnight.