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Students Take on Third World Challenge
By Elizabeth Caldwell '07
STAFF WRITER

Imagine you had only a few cups of water a day, and had to struggle to keep that water clean. This is a problem most of the developing world faces. This summer, seven SBC engineering students with several faculty members will be traveling to a 70-student middle school in Guatemala to learn about and try to correct these water management problems.

In Guatemala, there is a six month rainy season when water is abundant. The rest of the year is the dry season and students at a local school must collect water from a spring in buckets for all their needs. This is a problem because it makes water collection haphazard and unsafe. There is no way to know if the water is clean.

To deal with this issue, our students will be constructing a water tank and two spring boxes. The spring boxes are two brick boxes that will encase the spring and keep it from touching the ground. The tank will store water and make collecting it easier. It will enable the community to properly treat their water to eliminate sickness, as well.

Ultimately, the group will be facing down the problem of third world water management on a small scale.

“Water is a huge problem in most of the world,” said Dr. Jim Durand, a new professor of engineering here at Sweet Briar and one of the coordinators of the trip. “We couldn’t even comprehend it. Everyone in America probably uses about a hundred gallons of water a day.”

Much of the developing world lives on less than one gallon a day. To put that in perspective, it takes about four gallons of water just to flush a toilet.

Durand has a practical stance on the issue, though. “I know we’re not curing half the country, but we’re at least trying to understand the problem,” he said. He emphasized that it’s a small step in a big problem that will take a lot of careful consideration. “But we’re getting it out there,” he said.

For Sarah Smiley, ’09, the trip is a chance to practice her engineering skills while make a difference where it’s desperately needed. “I am very excited about it. It'll definitely be an adventure,” she said.

The trip has not been without its difficulties, though. The group has to make sure they are prepared in every way before they make it to Guatemala. They’re even constructing a practice run tank and spring boxes on the hill near the art barn.

“Some current challenges for the trip right now are making sure that we have all of the right equipment and materials so that when we arrive, we can begin right away,” Smiley said.

The trip was inspired by former professor Kurt Schultz, who knows the owner of the school in Guatemala, Ramelle Gonzalez. Schultz couldn’t be reached for comment on his inception of the trip.

If everything goes well with this first visit, the engineering department hopes to make the trip an event every other year.