EWB-UCL Brazil 2013
Salem Qunsol
3rd year Environmental Engineering
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Technical Design
Nur Atiqa Asri​
2nd year BSc Urban Planning, Design and Management
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​​Publicity and Sustainable Design
"Engineers Without Borders-UCL mission is to provide a platform of opportunities for UCL students to collaborate and help remove barriers to human development through engineering.
The society is strongly supported by the national charity Engineers Without Borders-UK. Student-led community development initiatives, not only make a positive contribution to poverty alleviation and international development, but also provide opportunities for University students to inspire the next generation of engineers to use their skills to make a global impact.
Presently, the society has established partnerships and is running projects in Africa and South America.
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One of the projects is based in a small area called Sepe Tiaraju in the city of Serra Azul – Brazil. The project is aimed at tackling various sanitation and water problems in the area by teaching the community to build sustainable, simple and reliable infrastructure. This empowers the local community and fosters community cohesiveness."
Kalsey Belle
2nd Year Mechanical Engineering with Business Finance
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Logistics and Fundraising
Massimiliano Materazzi
PhD Chemical Engineering
Team Leader
About
Our job, as a team from EWB-UCL will be to improve the water infrastructure and supply systems in Sepe Tiaraju by designing solutions to meet the specific needs and desires of the community. We will ensure that designs are suitable to the skills of the community and the adapt them so that they are not "foreign" solutions that the inhabitants will feel intimated by or are too complex to use and maintain. By working together with the community to build the system of water tanks and filtration units, the inhabitants develop a sense of belonging and personal achievement towards the system. The tanks will gather rainwater and transport it into the filtration units for adequate cleaning prior to distribution to the neighbouring homes. The filtration units also receive water from the sources already in use to ensure all the water used in the village is clean.
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One of our main goals is to depart from Sepe Tiarju, confident that the inhabitants are satisfied with the system, can replicate and maintain it so that they can become independent and self- sustaining.
To achieve this, our team members will be doing the following:
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1) Discussion: Prior to any designing or construction, we will ask the community what they feel they need and want in terms of a solution. Thereafter, we will propose and explain the design that we feel best suits their needs. Before finalising the design we will run our design by the community and adjust accordingly to ensure they are content with the proposed solution before proceeding.
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2)Construction: We will be teaching the community how to rebuild the tanks and filtration units so that they can maintain them and possibly build more for other communities.
2) Management and Leadership Skills: We will be teaching some individuals in the community on leadership and management skills that will enable them to manage and oversee projects adequately.
3) Sanitation Issues: The community will need to know, first, what they are doing wrong in terms of water collection and disposal. They will need to be taught how to attack particular sanitation issues and how to identify when certain aspects are not as good as they should be.
The group believes heavily the crucial element for a sense of ownership is developed when the community construct the infrastructure themselves. Many organizations have made the mistake of entering communities, imposing their own designs and beliefs onto the community without seeking their views and constructing a particular system and then leaving without communicating much with the people. This causes large amounts of distrust between the two parties and the eventual failure of the project.
Our team, however, will be approaching this project from a whole different angle as outline above; aiming to maximize the involvement of the community in the project through educating them, giving them jobs,and involving them in all decision-making processes.
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"This co- operation,we believe, will create a successful project."