Engineers Without Borders Water Needs Implementation Trips

This crowdfunding project has ended, but you can still support Tufts Engineers Without Borders. Thank you for your continued support!

We fundraise for our projects through grants, but we would like to provide higher quality tests to our communities. The Engineers Without Borders chapter at Tufts coordinates with communities that have asked for our help to solve an engineering problem in their community. Both projects are currently working to test the chemical and mineral properties of the communities’ water, and are looking to invest in highly accurate water quality tests. Your contribution will fund not only these testing kits, but also other supplies required for implementation such as labor, piping, and tanks. By helping our cause, you can help subsidize the cost of student travel, allowing more people to be involved in our club, thereby creating a larger global impact.

Nicaragua

The Nicaragua project of Tufts Engineers Without Borders is currently working with the community of Silvio Mayorga in Nicaragua to improve access to clean drinking water. Until recently, the community members had to walk almost an hour to obtain clean water. Last summer, three of our students and one of our professional mentors traveled to the community to assess the condition of the water tower, learn about the water-related health concerns, and form connections with community members and our local partner organization. We found that the current water tower is irreparable, and since then we have been designing plans to build an entirely new tower. We hope to raise the funds necessary to build a new, improved water tower in order to provide this community with clean water.

Malawi

The Malawi project of Tufts Engineers Without Borders is continuing its implementation phase for a water distribution system in Solomoni, Malawi this year. With the help of Joshua Orphan and Community Care, an NGO based out of the city of Blantyre, Malawi, we are working to improve access to clean water.  Our group is especially concerned with providing clean water to the primary and secondary schools as we have noticed students often skip classes to walk the twenty minutes to the nearest clean water source. This causes students to get behind, fail classes, and find themselves unable to advance to the next school year. Last summer, a team of three students and one professional mentor traveled to the community to drill a borehole and collect water samples for testing. While there, the Tufts students also ran workshops with the children in the community, teaching them the importance of washing their hands. Using the data collected on the trip, the Malawi team has spent the year researching filters and designing the tank, piping, and pumps to provide clean water to the primary and secondary schools in the community. We are currently raising money for the filters we need, as well as the costs of our implementation trips in the coming years.