Two undergraduates spent part of their first week of class this semester not on campus, but traveling in Honduras.
Their mission? To use their engineering skills to help build a water storage facility for an impoverished village.
The students -- Engineering and Wharton junior Alexander Mittal and Engineering sophomore Daniel Wallman -- are part of Penn Engineers Without Borders, a chapter of a national organization that places engineering students and professionals in developing communities. The organization's members use their skills in civil engineering to work on public infrastructure projects.
The pair returned to Philadelphia last night with their adviser, Hydrogeology professor Tony Sauder, after six days doing site assessment in Terreritos, a 300-person village with no electricity in Honduras.
They studied the geography of the area, met with community leaders and surveyed the town's water source.
Penn Engineers Without Borders intends to send about 15 members to implement the project over the summer, according to group Vice President Surbhi Puri, a senior in Engineering and the College. She estimated that the project will cost around $20,000, including travel for Penn volunteers. The group -- which receives some funding from the Weiss Tech House -- is currently raising money to pay for the trip.
The group hopes that villagers will be willing to help with actual construction, Puri said.
Currently, Terreritos villagers must walk a long distance to obtain drinkable water.
Once the water system is completed, the water -- which comes from a stream -- will flow through a natural filtration system and be stored in a tank, where villagers can access it.
The system is intended to reach 46 households, according to Megan Doherty, Penn's coordinator for service projects that involve engineering.
Though the technology of the project is relatively simple, "Its execution will bring about enormous improvements in daily living quality," said Joseph Sun, who also oversees service-related activities for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
"All around the country there are signs that say 'Water is life.' All of their problems come from" their lack of water, Wallman said.
The Penn Engineering group -- which was founded in the fall of 2004 and has close to 40 active members -- is one of 95 college chapters of the national Engineers Without Borders organization.
Penn students selected the water-system project from a list of projects that the national organization offers to its chapters.
The group was founded in 2000 by Bernard Amadei, an engineering professor from the University of Colorado. It currently has around 3,000 members, roughly half of whom are college students, and over 100 ongoing projects in about 30 different countries, according to Project Manager Meg VanSciver.
"By being able to go on these projects, people can help the world one community at a time," VanSciver said.
She added that sometimes the communities themselves request certain projects after finding the organization online. The group has received specific requests from communities in many countries, including Cambodia, Ethiopia and Ghana.
