Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Priyanka Senthil. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Priyanka thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

Being born in India and moving to the United States at the age of three shaped my early years, with most of my life unfolding in the U.S. However, my family’s periodic visits to India kept my Indian roots a crucial part of my identity. During our visits, I witnessed the stark contrast between the privileges I enjoyed in the U.S. and the difficulties many families faced living in rural areas of India. Seeing how the scarcity of water, food, and basic necessities impacted every aspect of life, from sanitation to nutrition and the ability to sustain families left a lasting impact on me.

Drawing inspiration from conversations I had with my peers, community leaders, and individuals in underserved communities in India and the U.S., I created Life Basics with an aim to empower underserved communities with essential resources and opportunities to help promote self-sustainability. You can learn more about Life Basics at https://www.life-basics.org/.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

At Life Basics (https://www.life-basics.org/), our mission is to create lasting change through four thoughtfully designed initiatives: Periods of Power, Cozy Covers, Sewn for Success, and H2O for Humanity. These initiatives were developed through close collaboration with our community partners and are aimed at promoting health, dignity, and self-sufficiency.

Our Periods of Power initiative is focused on donating menstrual products and destigmatizing menstruation through education. We have donated over 56,600 period products to orphanages, rehabilitation centers, and underserved schools in India, as well as to foster care homes and homeless shelters in Houston such as Star of Hope, Beacon Homeless, and Sanctuary Foster Care Services. We have been able to directly impact over 2,500 people with our Periods of Power initiative.

Thus far, we have focused most of our time and efforts on our Periods of Power initiative; however, we are making steady progress on our other three initiatives. Although we are in the early stages, our goal is to always center the community amidst all the work we do.

Our Sewn for Success initiative is focused on providing sewing machines to rehabilitation centers that have vocational training programs in India so that the beneficiaries they serve can learn how to sew and make a sustainable livelihood for themselves. In India, tailoring is a common occupation, so we hope that by providing sewing machines, we can help members of the community supplement their incomes and take care of their families.

Our H2O for Humanity initiative is focused on constructing water pumps in rural communities to increase their access to clean water. We will be collaborating with nonprofit organizations that are already building water wells in certain areas so that we can leverage the partnerships they have in order to truly address the community’s needs.

Our Cozy Covers initiative is focused on working with hotels to collect and distribute bath and bedding materials to homeless shelters. Many lodging establishments prematurely discard their sheets and this leads to a lot of waste in landfills. We hope to mitigate this trend and find a more sustainable solution so that these urgently needed items can be donated to those who can use them.

Each initiative addresses specific challenges while promoting sustainable solutions. Our goal is to empower these communities to become self-reliant. For us, Life Basics is not just a nonprofit but a deeply personal commitment to bridge the gap between privilege and need. We hope to create not just immediate impact, but lasting change.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I currently collaborate with three fellow Rice University students: Sowmya Viswanathan, Pankti Mehta, and Elsabet Samuel. We share a bond rooted in both friendship and our shared experiences living in or frequently visiting our families’ home countries—India and Ethiopia. These visits allowed us to witness firsthand the disparities between our lives in the U.S. and the conditions faced by many in low- and middle-income countries.

During meals together, we often discussed these disparities, particularly issues like period poverty and the cultural stigma surrounding menstruation. In many places, menstruation is not openly discussed, especially with non-menstruators, leading to poor education and limited access to affordable period products.

In Ethiopia, during Elsabet’s visits to orphanages, she noticed that many girls lacked access to menstrual products, often resorting to unsafe alternatives like rags or tissues. We also realized that period poverty is a global issue—not just in low-income countries, but in the U.S. too. Many students in the U.S. miss school because they can’t afford period products, and even government assistance programs don’t cover these essentials.

Our shared concern led to the creation of Periods of Power, which soon expanded into our other initiatives as we identified additional needs both locally and abroad.

Any advice for managing a team?

Our team’s strength comes from our close-knit friendship, which existed before we co-founded Life Basics. Working together feels like an extension of that bond. We maintain high morale by making space for everyone’s input at the beginning of each meeting, which helps spark new ideas and keeps excitement alive.

We’ve also found that clearly delegating tasks and outlining project deliverables at each meeting is key. Since we started Life Basics during undergrad, strong time management has been critical. By prioritizing Life Basics and protecting time each week for it, we ensure steady progress.

There are inevitably difficult periods, especially when securing sponsorships or donations is tough. But during those times, we remind ourselves why we all care about Life Basics so deeply and to keep pushing forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.life-basics.org/
• Other: https://www.gofundme.com/f/gvekfx-life-basics?attribution_id=undefined&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=website_widget