The Daniel A. Okun Chapter of Engineers Without Borders at UNC - Chapel Hill

La Fuente provides healthcare to thousands of adults and children that live in an urban slum outside of Cusco, Peru. To sustain the clinic’s rapid growth, La Fuente needs to convert from a paper records system to a computer based one. The goal of this project is to design an electronic medical records system that that stores patient data, medical clinic records, and tracks community projects. We will obtain computers and other necessary electronic equipment, install the system, and train the medical staff at La Fuente to use it.

Ryan Kingsbury, Bonnie Lyon and faculty advisor Donald Lauria travelled to Ecuador at the end of April for a reconnaissance mission to identify candidate project in Ecuador.  The group visited several possible project sites outside Quito, around Macas and in the Ecuadorian Amazon near the border of Peru. 

In June 2009, EWB-UNC received approval from our nonprofit partner, Fundación Natura, to begin working with the communities of El Inga Bajo and El Inga Alto on the outskirts of Quito.  These communities  are served by a water distribution system fed by a spring in the mountains.  Community leaders have documented contamination in parts of the distribution system and report that enteric illnesses are prevalent in the community.

EWB-UNC will be involved in assessing the extent and likely source of the contamination, identifying and designing an appropriate solution, and supervising its construction.  We will also assist the community with routine maintenance activities such as flushing the transmission line and cleaning their water storage tank.

EWB-UNC is partnering with faculty member Jason West to help provide renewable energy technologies to families living in rural northern Mexico.  Solar technologies being used by the Solar Mexico project include solar panels for electricity in homes, solar ovens for efficient cooking, and solar water distillers for clean drinking water.  Solar Mexico has subsidized 12 household solar electric systems, and subsidized the purchase of many ovens for families in need.

For more information visit the Solar Mexico Project Homepage.

Download the 2009 Mexico Project flyer here!

 Mexico Project Flyer (647 kB 2009-06-26 15:23:35)

Okun EWB is forming a strategic partnership with the US Ambassador to Moldova and the U.S. Bilateral Affairs Office to implement water and sanitation projects complimentary to UNICEF's country-wide school improvement initiative. In October 2008 EWB-UNC adviser Don Lauria, Okun Distinguished Professor Phil Singer, HBHE faculty member Geni Eng, and EWV-UNC ex oficio Kari Leech traveled to Moldova to develop the partnership and define the steps necessary to deliver safe water to the schools.  They observed primitive sanitation conditions in several schools.

EWB-UNC has since successfully applied to EWB-USA for a program in rural Moldova, making our chapter the only EWB chapter working on the European contintent.  In August 2009, team members Katey Mote and Matt Ragazzo will travel to Moldova with a professional affiliate of the US Bilateral Affairs Office, with the goal of identifying specific candidate schools for a project involving improved sanitation

 The aims of the Peru water project are to provide long-term, clean, and reliable water to Ciudad de Dios, Peru via an improved water capture, supply and distribution system. Dr. Brian Billman of UNC, and an organization he co-founded called M.O.C.H.E, have a partnership with the Ciudad de Dios community whereby the community guards archeological dig sites in exchange for development money for the town. Water service to the town was previously sporadic and unreliable thus, EWB was asked to analyze the current water distribution system and make suggestions and plans for improvements to the system.  Okun EWB students, in collaboration with Duke University students and many local laborers, installed a spring box and 3 km of new water transmission line in the summer of 2008.

In June of 2009, EWB-UNC students Anna Fabiszewski and Carrie Shaw returned to Ciudad de Dios to assist the Water Committee in identifying future vulnerabilities and maintenance needs for the system, and to develop institutional capacity (such as basic bookkeeping).  In addition, the team worked to help the Water Committee to gain the recognition of local governments.  EWB-UNC will continue to maintain contact with the Ciudad de Dios Water Committee and conduct further follow-up activities as needed.

The community of Dey Ut, near Prek Eng in Kandal province, is faced with enormous challenges. Cambodia is the poorest country in Asia, where the majority live on less than one dollar per day. In addition to high child mortality, lack of adequate health care, chronic undernutrition, and debilitating, near universal poverty, this peri-urban and rural area outside Phnom Penh has no reliable source of clean drinking water or sewerage. The surface water sources are microbiologically unsafe, and the well water has high levels of naturally occurring arsenic, regularly over 500 ppb and occasionally as high as 2000 ppb (10 ppb is considered ‘safe’, according to the WHO). Many large-scale well drilling programs in Cambodia throughout the 1980s and 1990s encouraged the widespread use of well water, before testing revealed areas of high As concentrations. This year, Cambodia has confirmed its first cases of arsenicosis. Our team’s mission was to design and implement a rainwater catchment system at the primary school in Dey Ut, together with our community partners and with a local NGO. The system will provide drinking water to the 1200 children at the school whose only alternative is an arsenic contaminated well with concentrations above 500 ppb. 

The mayor and town administrator of Navassa, NC (a low-income community 5 miles northwest of Wilmington) knew their aging drinking water infrastructure was becoming unsustainable. Okun EWB, collaborating with the Navassa town council and the UNC School of Government, conducted a preliminary water audit, identifying ~20% water losses.

 The audit was completed an presented to the Mayor and Town Council of Navassa in Fall 2008.