Engineers Without Borders-Montana State University: A Case Study in Student-Directed Engagement in Community Service

Engineers Without Borders at Montana State University (EWB@MSU) is an organization that has been successful in generating increased student engagement through service learning and is unique in the degree to which the organization has been built and directed by student volunteers. For the last decade, students have been self-motivated to manage an organization that collaborates with primary schools in the Khwisero district of Western Kenya to develop water and sanitation solutions. The continued success of the organization requires students to overcome the difficulty of year-to-year continuity, develop skills to undertake complex problems, and work in an unfamiliar culture to implement projects. To address these challenges, students engage faculty advisors, professionals (both in the US and Kenya), their peers, and Kenyan beneficiaries to generate solutions collectively. While in the United States, students gain the skills necessary to undertake the activities of an international aid organization while simultaneously developing the next generation of student volunteers. While in Kenya, students continue to develop skills to overcome difficulties associated with international development where strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication, project management, and an awareness of power differentials are necessary implement projects successfully. We propose that the motivation required for continuing the work of EWB@MSU is a result of the level of autonomy the students have, in conjunction with the mentors and advisors who champion and support project-based learning. This case study explores the lessons learned in the development of a self-motivated student organization conducting a long-term international service-learning project. Introduction Engineers Without Borders at Montana State University (EWB@MSU) is a student chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA). EWB-USA is committed to working with student and professional chapters to address the Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations 2030 Agenda1, one of which is clean water and sanitation. Throughout its history, the student members of EWB@MSU have sought to make improvements to the way they design and implement projects and the way in which they interact with the community. These improvements and initiatives are largely student-led and have varying degrees of success but have great potential for enriching learning experiences as will be evident in the following case study. The students and mentors involved in this process volunteer a significant number of hours to EWB@MSU meetings and fundraisers. This affords students an opportunity to develop their own solutions to diverse, multi-cultural problems with their peers and mentors. This inductive style of learning inspires students to engage in the process2. The project-based and problem-based learning model provides an opportunity for increased engagement not only in students’ respective studies, but in developing the strong communication, leadership and life-long learning skills that are required for success both in their careers and EWB@MSU projects. Inductive methods promote a deeper approach to learning. They also promote intellectual development and help students gain the critical thinking and self-motivated learning that will help them thrive3. EWB@MSU is currently comprised of approximately 50-60 student members from engineering and non-engineering disciplines. Since its inception in 2004, EWB@MSU has worked to develop a long-term development relationship with the Khwisero community in Western Kenya to provide clean water and sanitation at its’ 63 public primary schools. Dedication to water and sanitation development for Khwisero has created the foundation for self-sustaining student engagement. EWB@MSU student volunteers have shouldered the responsibility for developing a robust and growing undergraduate organization involved in international development work. The continued success of the organization requires students to overcome the difficulty of year-to-year continuity by engaging mentors (both in the US and Kenya), their peers, and Kenyan beneficiaries. The success of the organization relies on individuals to work together to develop the technical and communication skills required to undertake complex technical and social problems while working in an unfamiliar culture to implement and sustain projects. In addition to these challenges, EWB@MSU has tended toward a collaborative and consensus-building style of decision making which often results in frustrating but significant learning opportunities for both students and mentors. This paper presents a case-study for an EWB@MSU water development project that began in 2013 for the Munjiti Primary school. This project exemplifies the learning opportunities that result from student-led management and decision making. A brief history of the EWB@MSU chapter’s inception and development will be presented to give some context for the case-study. In 2003, Ronald Omyonga initiated the process that would eventually bring EWB@MSU to Khwisero by writing a proposal for water and sanitation development aid to EWB-USA. Omyonga is a well-respected graduate of one of the primary schools in Khwisero that EWB@MSU would later serve and is currently an architect living in Nairobi, Kenya. He wished to increase the standard of living as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility for the residents of Khwisero. Concurrently, a group of undergraduate engineering students at MSU established a chapter of EWB@MSU and responded to Omyonga’s proposal for partnership in Khwisero through EWB-USA. EWB@MSU’s interest in working with multiple schools resulted in a long-term project where prioritization of building sustainable relationships and designs within the Khwisero community is critical. The Khwisero sub-district is home to approximately 110,000 people who live primarily by subsistence agriculture but is also home to politicians, government employees, teachers, small business owners, and professionals4. Many individuals speak three languages, their “mother tongue” or tribal language, Kiswahili (also known as Swahili), and British influenced English. The region is organized around clans, sub-clans, and extended families that are centered at primary schools and churches. Access to basic infrastructure in Khwisero is changing rapidly. More and more public institutions and market centers have electricity, water, and sanitation facilities as a result of both non-government (NGO) and government investment. In recent years, the national government has decentralized power from large provinces to smaller counties and access to technology and global influences has increased4. In 2004, two student members of EWB@MSU made a trip to Khwisero to meet Omyonga and other members of the community as well as to collect information on the sanitation and water conditions in the district. The first borehole was drilled in 2006 at the school Omyonga attended as a child. A second borehole was drilled in 2007 and by the end of 2008 three more borehole projects had been implemented. Student members of EWB@MSU were working with schools less as leaders and more as learners, as the schools arranged for local solutions to the maintenance issues presented by the students. This resulted in long-term success of the wells at those three schools but came with three different management structures. Locally specific management structures were found to be effective, but increased the importance of the social work accompanying the projects. The importance of the social component increased the diversity of the organization, which then improved the quality and resiliency of the organization but with increased complexity5. With increased complexity in the organization competing objectives began to develop. On one hand, the original mission of providing water and sanitation services to the 56 primary schools in Khwisero mandated building a well-functioning development organization that could manage and design appropriate engineering solutions. On the other hand, as a primarily volunteer, student-led organization with high turn-over and abundant amateurism, a mechanism for investing in and building student leaders was necessary. These objectives are inter-dependent and oftentimes contradictory, creating a complex interplay in allocating resources within the chapter. During this period, in addition to struggling with competing objectives and continuing to design and implement projects, the chapter established a Kenyan board to provide advice, legitimacy within the community, and a mechanism to rank schools in terms of need5. Between 2012 and 2013 it became apparent that the functionality of the projects that EWB@MSU had undertaken still wasn’t as high as was desired and a qualitative positive correlation between the quality and quantity of time working with the school communities to achieve successful projects was evident. Several projects continued to encounter operation and/or maintenance issues and many schools did not have the financial resources or management skills to address the problems. In response, a student-designed initiative was implemented to increase the amount of assessment time spent at each school. The assessment process outlined by EWB@USA was built upon, to include a one-year assessment/capacity building period after the Khwisero Board selected the school; this was followed by a year of project implementation, and subsequently with multiple years of project follow-up obtaining both quantitative and qualitative metrics of project success. Members of each travel team now dedicate time at completed projects with the intent of identifying technical and social problems to improve future design and implementation as well as to provide to support to the 38 projects implemented at 28 primary schools in Khwisero. Munjiti Primary Part I – Drilling the Well In August