Project by project, Rice Engineers Without Borders-USA help developing nations

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Bridges are a wonderful metaphor for making a better world. But Rice University students go further. They build actual bridges.

The Rice chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) is doing its part, currently through a bridge project in Nicaragua and a water distribution and purification system in El Salvador. Members expect to make great progress on both this year and will likely complete the bridge next summer.

One team of students in the 60-member organization, which began at Rice in 2003 and has completed eight projects so far, plans to spend the winter break in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, where dozens of children now wade through the often-dangerous current of the Rio Grande River to get to their school on the other side. (This video of the river after a rain makes the problem clear.)

“The nearest crossing is a bridge for vehicles two miles away,” said Jones College senior David Younger, who first went to Matagalpa in March and returned in August to meet with the community. He learned students are just as likely to stay home from school as they are to walk miles to the bridge when the river runs high. “When we were there for an initial assessment, we saw 30 or 40 people an hour crossing the river, going to school or to work. We expect that number to rise if there’s a bridge available,” he said.

		From top to bottom: Members of the Rice chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA stand on the bridge at El Panama, Nicaragua, they completed last year; Rice student Erin O’Malley walks a local youngster across the El Panama footbridge; students lay bricks in the construction of a health clinic in Nicaragua; and Matagalpa residents wade across the Rio Grande, where a Rice team plans to build a new footbridge.

The wood-and-steel pedestrian bridge, modeled on a project at El Panama, Nicaragua, that the Rice team completed last year, will serve two barrios. “They’ve been promised this bridge for a number of presidencies now and it hasn’t happened,” Younger said. “The community is frustrated. Because this is an election year, we were able to use that as leverage to go in and talk with community leaders who are appointed by the government.”

The students recognized a way to help fulfill a pressing need, financially and through their engineering skills and physical labor, that would entice local government officials to participate. It was a valuable lesson in diplomacy. “We were able to say, ‘Hey, this is a great opportunity. We’re going to help with the funding if you will say, definitively, you’re going to build this bridge this year.'”

Much is expected of community members, who will reposition river rocks and prepare foundations before Rice students arrive for construction next spring and summer. Because new calculations show the river’s 100-year maximum is higher than initially thought, the bridge site may be adjusted or the team may simply build the bridge higher.

“That adds considerably to the cost,” Younger said. “The foundations have to be very large, and cement is very expensive.”

The team co-led by Younger, Jones College junior Elizabeth Diaz and Baker College junior Erin O’Malley is getting technical help from mentors available through EWB-USA, which must approve plans before construction, and from Bridges to Prosperity, a nonprofit that connects communities to health care, schools and work by building footbridges over impassable rivers in developing countries.

Bridges to Prosperity will provide recycled steel cables from New York, while clamps for the new 49-meter span will also be imported from the United States. All other materials, including cement and wood, will be local, Younger said. “We’re working with the municipality to acquire all those materials and with a mason who worked with us on our last project and will train local masons.”

The El Salvador team is partnering with the Peace Corps and plans to return to Los Alas over winter break to evaluate water sources and assess geological challenges. The water distribution system will initially serve 150 in the community and could be expanded in the future. The team finished a similar project in El Pital, El Salvador, last winter that serves 300 people.

“Depending on what we find – the flow rates in the rivers, how we have to design our system and purify the water – the project could take four or five years,” said Martel College junior David Howard, a team leader with Will Rice College junior Justin Ng.

Howard, a chemical engineering major, said members of the Central Houston Professional EWB-USA chapter are essential to the projects as technical mentors.

“While we can do a lot of the work, we don’t always know which path to take, which way to go, and our technical mentors are there for guidance and for pre-approving designs before we send our documents to EWB-USA,” added chapter President Adriana Gamboa, who was part of a team that completed a health clinic in Pueblo Nuevo Sur, Nicaragua, earlier this year.

Gamboa is a senior bioengineering major who said her experience with EWB-USA has extended her knowledge of how to get things done in the real world far beyond what she’s learned in the classroom.

She’s committed to EWB-USA’s progress at Rice, but travel and materials aren’t cheap. EWB-USA members typically spend winter and spring breaks on-site, and do the bulk of the labor during six-week summer stints. The organization has an annual operating budget of $75,000 and is grateful for the continuing support of steadfast donors that include West University Rotary, GSI Environmental Inc. and the Herzstein Foundation.

This year, EWB-USA at Rice is casting a wider net through Global Giving, a clearinghouse for donations that supports solutions to local problems around the world. Rice EWB-USA will participate in Global Giving for one month beginning Nov. 23, when a Web page to support the bridge will be posted. “People can donate small amounts, and they’ll learn exactly what that will pay for – the amount of nails $5 will buy or the amount of wood $10 will pay for,” Gamboa said. “Other EWB–USA chapters have been really successful with this program.”

Real success is measured not only in the successful completion of a project, but also in the amount of involvement by the community, which has to buy in to a concept before anything can happen. Younger said that won’t be an issue in Matagalpa, where he could sense the excitement during his team’s assessment trip. “At the end of our meetings in August,” he recalled, “people would say, ‘Let’s start today.'”