Smoke signals

In the isolated Andean town of Yanayo, Bolivia, life was simple but unsafe. Children opted to tend to the family’s goats and sheep instead of making the treacherous four-mile trek by foot to the closest school. Most of the 100 villagers have a third-grade education, at best.

The men planted and harvested crops as best they could with the arid soil and rocky terrain. The women carried the brunt of the workload, waking before sunrise to cook for up to eight hours to feed their large families. With poorly designed stoves and small homes without chimneys, their lungs filled with smoke, leading to high incidences of respiratory disease such as pneumonia and tuberculosis.

But now the villagers can breathe a little easier, thanks to the humanitarian efforts of a group of UW students who have dedicated their time and resources to implementing sustainable engineering projects in developing countries.

Through their work with the UW’s student-run chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), a group of active members have improved the standard of living for the 23 families of Yanayo by building more efficient stoves, replacing thatched roofs with tin and installing rainwater harvesting systems.

However, given the organization’s rapid growth, organizing a fundraising campaign for upcoming projects has proven to be a challenge for this burgeoning group.

University of Colorado civil engineering professor Bernard Amadei started the first student chapter of EWB after designing and installing a water delivery system for a village in Belize in 2001.

Amadei’s mission for the organization is to “build a better world, one community at a time” by implementing sustainable changes that can “interrupt the cycle of poverty.” In the short time since its inception, the program has grown to more than 250 student-run or professional chapters in the United States alone.

The UW chapter began in 2005 with a handful of engineering students and has since blossomed into a thriving club of members from different academic departments working on projects in three regions of the world. Their current project in Yanayo is in its third year. Faculty supervisor Susan Bolton, a professor of forest resources, said the national chapter requires that each project last from between two to five years with numerous site assessments during that timeframe.

Bolton’s initial site assessment in September 2006 revealed that a long-standing drought in Bolivia threatened the villagers’ way of life. In addition to water concerns, EWB members also saw opportunities for improving roads and health conditions. Aside from the polluting stoves, the thatched roofs harbored a breeding ground for the insect that causes Chagas, an often fatal parasitic disease that attacks the heart and digestive system.

Bolton and a few students, including Ph.D. candidate Donee Alexander, the project leader for the Yanayo village, returned to the village in July 2007 to implement their designs for the stove and irrigation system and teach villagers how to use them.

After returning from a third site assessment in March, Alexander reported that the irrigation system they designed gave the town plenty of water that yielded crops of onions, carrots and fruit, even in the dry season. Part of the irrigation system involved a series of long pipes that carried rain water downhill.

The group had given the villagers explicit instructions to bury pipes underground to protect against cracking and leaks. Only one villager failed to cover a pipe, which subsequently broke. Because he failed to comply with the regulations set forth by EWB, he forfeited any future supplies for irrigation.

Alexander said most of the women were using their new stoves properly. The most common cause of death for children less than 5 years of age is pneumonia induced by air pollution, she added, but the hacking coughs and sore throats of the villagers have greatly reduced since the stoves were installed last July.

The long and winding road

While Alexander called the response from the Yanayo community “amazing,” the volunteers have a long, hard road ahead of them. With successful implementation of the stoves and irrigation system, the group now wants to focus their efforts on repairing a 15-mile stretch of road that leads to the nearest market.

Jeff Walters, a graduate student in civil engineering who accompanied Alexander on the most recent site visit in March, said the road is in “horrendous” condition. He called the terrain through which the road weaves “a canyon of doom” and said it would probably be easier to destroy the current road with dynamite and start over rather than try to repair it. He attributed the instability of the road to drainage issues.

“So much design needs to happen between now and soon,” Walters said.

But the project will be a costly one. Alexander estimated their need for funding to be $100,000 for future projects in the region.

Bolton said fundraising has been an ongoing problem for the group. The UW’s chapter chose Latin America as its area of concentration partly because it is less expensive than traveling to Africa, but the group can still only afford to send a few members during each trip, she said.

While they have held many successful fundraising events and receive additional money from individual donors, local Rotary Clubs, and corporate sponsors, Alexander said fundraising will always be an issue because “the Bolivia project is exploding.”

But sophomore Elaine Chao, UW’s EWB secretary, said she’s impressed with how much they have been able to raise.

“It shows how much potential there is to tap into and how much good there is in people,” she said. The group’s executive committee is trying to organize an effort to lure in local construction firms as donors.

The future of EWB

Jonathan Miller, the former president of the UW chapter, said EWB has grown exponentially.

Alexander predicts that if it continues to grow at such a fast pace, EWB will be a “monster.” She said that while the organization is doing a good job with what they have now, it needs to slow down and develop a more organized database of projects, which she said would be “the most amazing resource to the developing world.”

Despite such growing pains, the UW chapter continues to spread. The success of the Bolivia project has spawned an additional tasking in Suriname, where members will do a site assessment in late summer to look at the possibility of installing a potable water system.

While not all students have the time or desire to travel internationally, many still want hands-on experience in engineering projects. This led the group to organize a local project in the San Juan Islands, where members will begin work this summer in the national park system to design trails, composting toilets and environmentally friendly buildings for a children’s camp.

Chao said the effort will be a collaboration with the other local EWB groups, including the Seattle University and Puget Sound professional chapters. She said having a local project is a way to cut travel expenses, while keeping members active.

Such initiative to start new projects has surprised Bolton, who said she is “absolutely astounded” by the group’s efforts.

“Things have just gotten better every year,” she said. “It’s very satisfying to see how they are handling these projects.”

EWB seeks diverse members

Like any fledgling organization, the UW’s EWB chapter has experienced its fair share of recruiting woes. Though the group’s student population within the engineering department continues to increase, the organization also needs dedicated non-engineers to help promote and support the group’s efforts.

Between 30 and 50 students are involved, and the group’s numbers are growing quickly. The first chapter of EWB started in Colorado in 2001. Seven years later, more than 250 chapters have started at universities across the nation, and there are even more throughout the world.

The UW chapter has depended largely on e-mails, fliers and word of mouth to advertise. But Bolton said the organization still needs business managers, public relations representatives, Web designers, language and culture experts and health students.

Miller thinks it’s the name that turns people off.

“People hear the word ‘engineer’ and think, ‘What can I possibly do?’” he said.

As the organization continues to grow, he sees an increasing need for more students in fields other than engineering. Miller is studying microbiology, and the current president, junior Vimal Shenoy, is in the chemistry department.

Jason Padvorac, a senior in bioengineering, sought out students from 10 different academic departments as part of a class project for Engineering 380: Design for Sustainability in the Developing World. Bolton, who teaches the class, said Padvorac has been instrumental in the group’s recruiting effort.

“He’s done an amazing job of knocking on people’s doors,” she said.

Despite such outreach, the response was negligible. Students in the department of technical communication were the only ones to respond.

Another recruiting issue for the group is getting more undergraduates involved. Bolton said this chapter is unique because it is largely run by graduate students. Chao, who joined during her freshman year, admitted that she was initially intimidated by the older students because she wasn’t sure she had anything to add to the group.

But she continued attending meetings because she was interested in sustainability and wanted to give back to other communities. Members of the executive committee encouraged her to stay involved, and she decided to run for secretary in February. She is the only sophomore involved in the organization.

Padvorac said he thinks undergraduates are less involved because they aren’t as willing to take initiative as graduate students are. He said most undergraduates aren’t thinking about changing the world right now.

But undergraduates are needed to take over after the older students graduate. Projects last up to five years, so leadership will change during that time. Miller said the group needs to be as diverse as possible to have good continuity and a seamless turnover.

But slackers need not apply. Alexander called the experience rewarding but admitted she has had to make sacrifices. If you want to travel to a project site, she said you need to be prepared to “work your ass off.”

Alexander has been working on the Bolivia project since its inception in September 2006. She said the most rewarding part of her involvement has been spending time in the community and seeing people’s lives improve as a result of the group’s effort.

“You get what you give,” she said. “If you put more into it, you’ll make a larger difference in people’s lives.”

Bolivian villagers embrace UW student as one of their own

“Everyone has a cousin in Yanayo,” Bolton said.

For Alexander, it’s even more intimate than that. After three visits to the isolated Bolivian community, Alexander said she has become more like a sister. The community extols their American friend by renouncing her status as a “gringa,” or foreigner. Thanks to her work with the UW’s EWB chapter, members of the 100-person Bolivian community have embraced her as one of their own.

When Alexander was seeking a degree program, she had three criteria in mind: a solid civil engineering program, a mountainous backdrop and a relatively undeveloped chapter of EWB.

The UW was the perfect fit.

As a Peace Corps alumna, Alexander had already worked in developing nations. She speaks Spanish and is now learning Quechua, a native language of the Andes. Her engineering background and language skills were an asset to the group, whose area of concentration is Latin America.

The organization’s vision is to implement sustainable engineering projects that won’t adversely affect future generations. The idea is to teach the communities to keep the projects going without outside help. Most projects last two to five years.

But Alexander knows she’ll go back to visit, long after the projects are completed.

“We’ve become such a part of who they are,” she said.

As the project leader for the Yanayo community, Alexander travels on all site assessment trips to the impoverished village, where the group has already successfully implemented nonpolluting stoves, tin roofs and an irrigation system since the first site inspection in September 2006.

Alexander extended a visit last summer. The lone American stayed with the villagers for five weeks, one of which she spent largely intoxicated.

The villagers were in a festive mood. It was Bolivia’s independence day, and the villagers had prepared a batch of “chicha,” which Alexander likened to a weak, corn-based beer. But this beer had an expiration date on it, so they drank the intoxicating beverage for five days straight to salvage every last drop before it spoiled.

Villagers would then travel from one home to another, passing the drink around in a gourd, feasting on goat brains and intestines.

Alexander said during this time with the villagers, she gained not only a few pounds but also the trust of the people.

“It allowed me to get to know them on a very personal level,” she said.

Her candid participation in the village block party raised her status from foreigner to family.

“They want to build me a house in the community,” Alexander said sheepishly.

Perhaps they will discuss property values on her upcoming trip this summer. She plans to spend nearly three months in the community working on the current project to repair the road that leads to the nearest market. The new path might one day pave the way for even more extended family to settle into simple small-town life.