Spring Break
Engineers to tackle water shortage in El Salvador
Kayla Huddleston
Issue date: 10/6/08 Section: News
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Engineers Without Borders is a group of students dedicated to improving the lives of people in rural communities across the globe by designing and implementing projects to advance water cleanliness and distribution.
After planning the layout of the systems and raising the necessary funds to complete the projects, EWB groups travel to another country for weeks at a time to meet with community members and begin construction.
"Our mission (is to) help empower communities while working on small-level community projects," said Eric Golike, a senior chemical and biological engineering student and EWB-CSU president. "We also seek to give students a service-learning experience, so they will be influenced to volunteer more."
This year the group is splitting its efforts and planning two trips for January, each to a village in El Salvador. The first trip will be to San Antonio Abad, and the second trip will be a senior design trip, in which engineering students will receive academic credit for their efforts, to Las Colinas.
The destinations for these trips were considered after a related trip in August of 2007, when the group traveled to the El Salvador villages La Laguenta and El Chile to install a water delivery system.
During the dry season in these villages, water is rationed, and each family is allotted 25 to 100 liters of water a day to drink, wash dishes with and bathe in.
Over the three weeks the group spent there, two wells were dug and evaluation for future projects was completed.
"Even though the wells did not produce enough water to solve the water shortage problems of these two communities, they are a step in the right direction," an EWB trip report said. "Many other important tasks were accomplished on this trip, which will enable future phases to be carried out. With a better understanding of the area and of the needs of both of these communities, EWB-CSU is striving to develop new solutions and return to the area in the near future."
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