The annual fundraiser for the student-led Village Aid Project, which celebrates the work conducted last May that made a meaningful difference for communities in the developing world, will be held Nov. 14 in the Student Union Ballroom at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive. Between $60,000 and $70,000 is raised for the program each year.
Village Aid Project, formerly Engineers without Borders, is a nonprofit, student-led program that helps rural communities in developing countries find sustainable solutions to critical infrastructure problems, such as sanitation, waste management and clean water distribution, all while training a new generation to become culturally-aware global citizens. A mix of engineering, physics, natural science, mathematics, arts and humanities majors at FLC, physics and engineering professors Don May and Laurie Williams, and a handful of community members are given an opportunity each May to spend two weeks applying their education abroad in partner communities.
Williams joined the program in 2004 when it was called Engineers without Borders, and oversaw two student teams in Myanmar that built distribution systems for clean drinking water. She ensures a holistic approach is taken when teams are conducting service projects. The program has grown since she’s been in Durango.
“Now we have a sociology, geology, public health and some social science professors who are interested in the program. It’s more than just engineering/physics-based,” Williams said.
Service projects were conducted in Myanmar and Nicaragua last summer, and engineering students Kurtis Pink, VAP vice president, and Rachel Day will present their experiences at the Nov. 14 fundraising event.
Kurtis Pink has been involved in the project for the past two years and is vice president to president Mac Greene. He has taken two trips to rural villages in Myanmar to build drinking water distribution systems.
“They were both amazing,” Pink said. “I played a minor role during the first trip, and mostly worked to speed up construction of the water taps. This past May, I was a lot more involved.”
A team built a water system each year, the first with 19 water taps and the second with 20, to distribute drinking water to villages. Pink acted as student lead during the most recent trip and helped design the water system with professor Williams and a few community partners.
“I was very nervous and hesitant at first about my responsibilities, but at the end of the trip, I felt like a leader,” Pink said. He and his team encountered challenges, such as some unexpected elevation drops, but successfully diverted water to all 20 taps. He and Greene have spent the past month designing a water system for next May’s service project.
Rachel Day was involved with the preliminary design and planning for the 2016 trip to Nicaragua, where she and a team built and installed 10 transportable latrines to serve a village of about 150, located outside Jalapa. She was part of an effort that supplied 30 latrines to three villages in the area, and is currently working to design a water system for a trip back to Nicaragua this May.
“We’re in the process of looking into chlorination, just to consider all the options and find the best way to distribute clean drinking water to people who live in these villages,” she said.
All VAP members are volunteers and donations go to fund projects, which have been implemented in 32 communities in Thailand, Ecuador, Laos, Nicaragua and Myanmar. Students and mentors, throughout the academic year, design and plan water and sanitation systems, and develop education materials and programs for communities. In total, clean water has been supplied to approximately 1,500 families, more than 1,600 clean-water containers were distributed, 150 latrines have been built and a three-classroom school was constructed.
The celebration will be held at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at FLC. Light refreshments will be served until student presentations and discussions start at 7 p.m. The event will come to an end by 8:30 p.m. Attendees will lean about plans to do similar work in three or four villages in the summer of 2018.
fstone@durangoherald.com
