Engineering for a Sustainable Society

Transcription

1 Engineering for a Sustainable Society dkjglksdjg 2014 Year Report A Chapter of Engineers Without Borders SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

2 ABOUT ESF-ESS SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry- Engineering for a Sustainable Society (ESF-ESS) is a group of over eighty engineers, scientists, landscape architects and environmental scholars with an interest in international development. Group members devote their time and energy to help the chapter build sustainable infrastructure abroad while also increasing domestic awareness of the needs of people in the developing world. The rewards for these sacrifices will be threefold: joy when the project is completed, education on the principles of sustainable engineering design, and experience gained while working with fellow ESF-ESS members, professionals, and other student organizations. OUR MISSION TABLE OF CONTENTS About ESF-ESS 1 Our Mission 1 Letter from the President 2 ESF-ESS Officers 2 Honduras 3 Peru 4 Haiti 5 Guatemala 6 New York 7 Our Mentors 7 Engineers with Appetites Burritos Without Borders 9 Save the Date! April 2, Sponsors and Collaborators 10 The mission of ESF-ESS is to unite the talent, training and resources of organizations in the United States with the need and drive for sustainable development abroad. Page 1

3 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT At SUNY-ESF, I often find myself in awe, entirely inspired and captured by the passion that drives the students around me. That passion that surrounds our campus becomes even stronger within our club, providing drive and motivation to better the world. Through engineering and the encompassing social practices, we are able to do just that; following the hurdles, struggles, and failures we are bound to experience given the nature of development projects. With our skillful mentors, leading advisors, and generous sponsors we have been successful in overcoming project challenges and have made significant progress in our projects in Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Haiti, and New York. The year marks the 11 th anniversary of the establishment of our organization, an impressive feat of student, faculty, and professional dedication to improving the world. I am excited to share this newsletter which showcases our club s work over the past year. I hope you enjoy the read and consider reaching out to us to learn more or how to support us in our projects. Sincerely, Thomas J. Decker President ESF-ESS OFFICERS Thomas Decker Samantha Meserve Kurt Dirr Taylor Brown Thomas Decker President Treasurer Web Master Honduras Project Lead Peru Project Lead Kristine Ellsworth Kiana Morse Taylor Brown Lia Dombroski Becky Meissner Vice President Secretary Public Relations Kayla Besong Tyler Pitts Local Project Leads Jeremy Driscoll Douglas Reymore Haley Canham Alex Caven Guatemala Project Leads USA Representative Newsletter Editor Haiti Project Lead Page 2

4 HONDURAS ESF-ESS STUDENTS TRAVEL TO HONDURAS TO FINISH POTABLE WATER SUPPLY PROJECT In August 2014, students Thomas Decker and Taylor Brown were led by Professor Ted Endreny to Buena Vista, Honduras to continue a project that the ESF-ESS club has been working on since The purpose of the trip was to meet with the people in the community and their water board to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), evaluate any repairs the system needed, and to begin each of the eight tasks left before 100% completion. Before the project started, the community s source of water came from a precarious system of rubber hoses that were prone to leaks and contamination. The gravity-fed water filtration and distribution system implemented by ESS has provided approximately 45 families with a clean reliable source of water in their households for drinking, bathing, cooking and laundry. The project was designed to be sustainable, in that the people of the community, could eventually take full ownership of the system and be able to maintain the system without financial dependence on ESS. The community helped greatly during implementation and learned how the system works so that they could perform routine maintenance. The establishment of the water BY TAYLOR BROWN board was critical for the long-term success of the project. Giving people in the community leadership roles allows them to be mobilizers of their community and gives them a sense of pride. Another important factor to the success of this project is the partnership formed with the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Alfalit. They have helped maintain contact with the community, organized the purchase of materials and equipment, contracted labor, scheduled meetings, and carried out actual implementation. This project has faced many challenges, which has delayed completion. Delivering materials for implementation was difficult during the rainy seasons. Funding was also lost in 2009 when Honduras faced a coup d etat and the club needed to find alternate funding. After the trip this past August, the final funds were received by the community to finish the distribution system. As of October 2014, all tasks proposed in the MOU have been completed and the implementation phase of the project is finished. The next steps are to complete assessment of the project over the course of 2015, and to move forward with project closeout. Page 3

5 PERU RENEWABLE ENERGY IN THE ANDES MOUNTAINS OF PERU Significant progress has been achieved in the ESF-ESS Peru project to bring electricity to a rural Andean mountain village. The story begins in August of 2012, when ESF-ESS President Thomas Decker began a sustainable electrification project in the community of Abra Malaga, Peru. Abra Malaga has no governmental support to help implement electricity in homes with no indoor lighting or basic electrical services. Thanks to an ESF alumnus, we learned of Abra Malaga s interest in partnering with ESF-ESS and our club engaged the project. After the initial planning stages, the project was to provide and install solar panels and pico-hydro generators as a sustainable and long lasting energy source for electrification. Our target was to bring electricity to 20 homes in Abra Malaga and to create education opportunities and economic structure for the community to ensure self-sufficiency. Since project implementation began in 2013, we have been able to reduce the number of homes without electricity from 20 to 5, BY THOMAS DECKER through the installation of seven solar panels and one hydroelectric generator. This was tremendous progress for a relatively short period of time, limited trips, and a modest budget. Through fundraising and grant writing, the Peru team has secured a $10,000 IEEE grant to supplement donations from Rotary Clubs and private donors in upstate New York. With this extended budget, the team has purchased three more solar panel systems for installation, and has the capacity to plan and design a second hydroelectric generator. With the implementation of this last phase, all homes in Abra Malaga will have access to electricity. In addition, these funds will allow for the training of several community members (men and women) in renewable energy system installation and maintenance. These members will serve as the technicians of the community to provide maintenance over time. If you have any questions, please reach out to us and we will gladly discuss our Peru project in more detail. Page 4

6 HAITI A NEW PROJECT FOR ESF-ESS BY ALEX CAVEN Bonjour! Over the past year, ESF-ESS has begun exploring ways of getting involved in engineering work in Haiti. In March 2013, five ESF-ESS members spent 10 days getting to know the country, culture, and people from northern Haiti. ESF-ESS members journeyed from the beautiful Cap Haitien, or O-Cap, as it is commonly called, to the capital city of Port-au-Prince, and to the recently devastated epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, Leogane. We saw slums where displaced Haitians survive between sheet metal walls, plastic tarp roofs and doorways. We saw the lack of a sanitation infrastructure, leading people to defecate along sides of roads and rivers. We saw the result of years of deforestation, which has led to the dry, desolate countryside. We also saw the lush tropical forests which still exist in some parts of the beautiful mountain villages. Without the guidance of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL), a non-profit located in Haiti, our trip would have been much more difficult. They helped us navigate language and cultural barriers, opened their doors to us, provided transportation, and introduced us to Haitian food, culture, and people. Another local organization, Green Haiti, also helped us see more of the country. We met with Haitian farmers and agronomists, shopped at Haitian markets, and explored Haitian Voudu temples. They showed us soapstone mines and introduced us to the sculptors who shaped the stone into statues to sell in the markets. After all the eye-opening and humbling experiences in Haiti, our efforts turned into a question, What will we do as a club to improve conditions in Haiti? Stan Hovey, a 1955 graduate of ESF, is currently in the process of establishing a reforestation program in Haiti, and he wants our help. Stan has already established several tree nurseries in locations around southern Haiti, and has integrated his efforts with an agronomy school near the capital. We intend to develop a process for mapping trees as they are planted by Haitian locals. Plans are in the works for a second ESF-ESS trip to Haiti during our Spring Break in March, Stan visited our club in early November and discussed collaborative efforts between himself, the agronomy school in Port-au-Prince, and ESF-ESS club members. Onè Respè! Mesi anpil! Page 5

7 GUATEMALA COLLABORATION WITH THE SYRACUSE PROFESSIONAL EWB CHAPTER BY JEREMY DRISCOLL Beginning in May 2014, ESF-ESS began partnering with the Syracuse Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) project in Guatemala. The club s mission is to improve health and quality of life in developing countries, through sustainable engineering practices. The specific goal for this project is to work with a community to improve sanitation and hygiene through improved latrines. An initial trip in May 2014, included discussing details of the project with community leaders and identifying a site for latrines. Our trip consisted of three professional engineers and four students, three of whom are ESF-ESS members. We traveled to Las Majadas, a community of 400 students and their families near the Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala. The water system in Las Majadas is unreliable, overall hygiene is inadequate, and sanitation principles are not well understood. We met with a Peace Corps volunteer and a health care worker, both working in Las Majadas, to help with translation and to gain a better understanding of the community s needs. The community already has composting toilets, but they are a very basic design and most are near the end of their useful life. The project aims to develop a latrine design that will last longer and be more hygienic to use. During our trip, we collected soil and surveying data at each location to better compare our three proposed toilet designs. We met with students, parents, and community leaders to get input on our designs to facilitate human centered design. We are currently working on an alternatives analysis for an ideal latrine design. We are excited to continue to work with the Syracuse Professional Chapter and the community of Las Majadas into the future. Page 6

8 NEW YORK FINISHED LOCAL COMPOSTING TOILET PROJECT AT AMBERATIONS, MARIETTA, NEW YORK After two years of researching, designing, planning and implementing, we are proud to say the composting toilet was completed over the summer at Amberations in Marietta, New York. Amberations is a nonfor-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting mental health through the interaction with the natural environment. Gloria Wiley, one of the founders of Amberations approached ESF-ESS to construct a composting toilet. A composting toilet works to recycle human waste into usable compost. Essentially food from the earth is returned back to the earth, creating BY KRISTINE ELLSWORTH a full cycle. Due to the low usage expectancy, our design separates the urine which can be used as a fertilizer once mixed with water. Feces is collected and transported to a two-bin composter where it is mixed with carbon additives to accelerate the composting process and eliminate odor. All funds were provided through our club, ESF-ESS. Advising and mentorship was provided by Tony Russo. Special thanks to Kristine Ellsworth for leading the project and to everyone who has helped out along the way! OUR MENTORS Dr. Theodore Endreny Mark Fabian Ryan Storke PhD, PE, PH MS, Past PCV Industry Expert Faculty Advisor Honduras Technical Peru Technical Mentor Mentor Page 7

9 ENGINEERS WITH APPETITES ESF-ESS S THIRD ANNUAL ENGINEERS WITH APPETITES On April 1st, 2014 ESF-ESS held the third annual Engineers with Appetites, which is a dinner event for students, faculty and professionals in the Syracuse area aimed at raising funds and awareness about ESF- ESS s current projects. This year the focus was to highlight the upcoming completion of our Honduras project, our Peru project, and the possibility of new projects in Haiti and Guatemala. Speakers at the event included Ana Flores, ESF-ESS s president, SUNY-ESF s new president Quentin Wheeler, and Travis Mayo, an employee of the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Mayo spoke on the importance of the work being BY SAMANTHA MESERVE undertaken by organizations like USAID and ESF-ESS. Over 45 guests, including professionals from O Brien & Gere, Brown and Caldwell, CHA, GHD, Arcadis, Dunn and Sgromo, and numerous SUNY-ESF faculty, alumni, and students attended the event. The proceeds from the event helped purchase materials for current projects and also enabled students to travel to Honduras, Peru, and Haiti to complete humanitarian engineering work. We would like to thank everyone who attended and helped to make this night a success. We look forward to next year s Engineers with Appetites on Thursday, April 2nd, 2015! Page 8

10 BURRITOS WITHOUT BORDERS THIRD ANNUAL ESF-ESS BURRITOS WITHOUT BORDERS FUNDRAISER BY BENJAMIN TAYLOR We held our third annual Burritos Without Borders fundraiser on October 8, 2014, selling nearly 300 burritos, which raised over $900 for our projects around the world. We received generous donations from 7 local restaurants: The Mission Restaurant, Alto Cinco, Moe s, Don Juan Cafe, Steve s Cantina, Boom Boom Mex Mex, and Price Chopper. Please show your support to these local businesses! On the days leading up to the fundraiser, dozens of hands were at work organizing, shopping, chopping, preparing, and picking up the various food items to make a delicious burrito. As students and faculty anxiously flooded into Nifkin Lounge on the 8 th, ESF-ESS members rolled burritos with smiles on their faces. People joyously chatted through the line as they watched a fresh burrito be prepared exactly to their liking. Prices ranged from $4 to $7, depending if cornbread, chips, and a drink were also purchased. Like many SUNY-ESF events, students were asked to bring a plate and lug their mug in order to minimize waste. We were even able to donate our extra beans to a local homeless shelter! Thank you to everyone who helped during the day or behind the scenes. Look for us again next year! SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, APRIL 2, 2015 SUNY-ESF s Engineering for a Sustainable Society (ESF-ESS) invites you to the 4 th Annual Engineers With Appetites Location: SUNY-ESF s Gateway Center Invitation to follow For more information, please contact ESF-ESS at esfewbsd@gmail.com Page 9

11 SPONSORS AND COLLABORATORS HOW TO DONATE You can make a donation/sponsorship by check, which can be sent to: SUNY-ESF Cashier s Office 102 Bray Hall 1 Forestry Drive Syracuse, NY Sponsorship Categories Gold - $1,000 Silver - $500 Bronze - $250 Please make checks payable to SUNY-ESF with Engineers Without Borders in the memo As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, all donations to ESF-ESS are tax deductible Page 10

12 Engineering for a Sustainable Society A Chapter of Engineers Without Borders SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry For more information, please contact ESF-ESS at esfewbsd@gmail.com Find us on Facebook as SUNY ESF Engineering for a Sustainable Society Or check out our website at A special thank you to all our writers! Page 11