Engineering with a Conscience

Volunteers are using low-tech engineering to have a high impact in developing communities. Volunteer teams of civil and environmental engineering students from the University of Colorado at Boulder and their professor installed a water delivery system that used no electricity. Engineers Without Borders (EWB) pairs professionals with volunteer engineering students to design and build an infrastructure project that a developing community has identified as a pressing need to help provide training, and to improve the quality of life for people in developing communities. In Santisuk, Thailand, EWB-USA volunteers installed a multipart filtration system, a covered spring box and new leach fields to clean up the contaminated water supply. Making more progress on the organizational level is the current goal of EWB-USA. The non-profit enterprise is working on getting a baseline organization in place that’s funded, so it can adequately control the quality of its project.