Build It So They Can Learn
DURHAM-Students participating in the UNH Students Without Borders (SWB) program, engineered and built a non-human powered water system that helps to prevent child labor and provides a badly needed water supply. After returning from their January 5-16, 2007 visit to Niger in West Africa, Kim Morris, UNH Environmental Engineering student, reported during their recent department seminar that, “The Niger Project was a positive experience from the first development of the rope pump design. We were able to consolidate what we learned from our past experiences, our professors and our ability to adapt, to develop a culturally sustainable water pump. SWB worked among the Tuareg in a village six hours from Agadez to create something that promotes new technology, renewable resources, and ultimately education.
The villagers were excited to implement this efficient animal powered pumping system that will hopefully minimize child labor and promote higher health standards.”
Students Without Borders is the UNH Chapter of the Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) program: a non-profit humanitarian organization that partnerships with foreign communities to implement sustainable engineering projects. For this project SWB collaborated with RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara (RAIN), a non-profit organization based in UNH’s neighboring town of Newmarket, New Hampshire. RAIN’s mission is to develop and support residential schools for children of the semi-nomadic Tuareg people.
Niger is located in the Sub-Sahara Desert and is about twice the size of Texas. It is in one of the sunniest regions of the world and suffers under harsh conditions with a poor water supply and no higher education or health training. Between modern transportation dramatically affected Niger’s Tuaregean roles as salt traders and the further devastation of the drought cycles, those left to sustain themselves through farming and animal husbandry have had little choice but to search for employment in nearby countries. The Tuareg, who for centuries have transported salt in the Sahel, rely on the RAIN boarding schools for their children’s education.
Specific SWB Project Goals were to: pump water from a well depth of 38 feet (or more); pump 1000 gallons of water twice daily for drip irrigation; integrate knowledge of Tuareg people into designing a culturally appropriate solution; and design a durable cistern with local materials to survive the harsh climate. During the project, no one was more surprised than the UNH students when the tables turned providing an unexpected discovery. The discovery that this people who live and survive in the poorest country of the world not only easily comprehended new engineering methods, but took them one step further
Tim Corrigan, UNH Civil Engineering Major, mentioned that ""Working side by side with local people helped us accomplish our goal of incorporating local building techniques and materials while promoting reproduction of the design by granting hands on experience. In the prototype design we decided that cutting rubber washers from tires was far to imprecise and labor intensive to count on, but upon arrival the wealth of fine leather workers in the Tuareg community made this an efficient and reliable option. Local concrete mixing techniques and aid with aggregate selection proved invaluable and really helped excellerate construction. Adaptations to the frame on site contributed largely to the success of this project and could not have been done without the collaboration between SWB and the Nigerian individuals. Public involvement was a huge help in fine tuning our design and left us feeling that the people here are well equiped to make improvements and implement the design elsewhere."
Other UNH SWB students who made the trip to West Africa were Matt Polzin (Liberal Studies) and Katie Brown (Public Health). Also making the trip to Africa was professional engineer Eric Reitter, who is a UNH Civil Engineering Alumn (May'93) and currently with AMEC Earth and Environmental. Reitter spent many long hours working with the students, and UNH Research Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Jenna Jambeck, before the trip to research and design the culturally appropriate sustainable water system using only those materials easily attainable in Niger
SWB was established in 2002 and has been proactive with three trips to Thailand, one to Indonesia, a site assessment trip to Niger, Africa last year and now returning from their follow-up implementation trip also to Niger.
To learn more about the:
UNH student driven Students Without Borders program: http://www.unh.edu/ewb/.
RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara project can be found at: http://www.rain4sahara.org/.
Engineers Without Borders-USA website is: http://www.ewb-usa.org/.
College of Engineering and Physical Sciences: www.ceps.unh.edu