KENYA PROJECT

OUR PARTNER

The village of Gambella, Kenya, had completed a 5-year program with Global Hope Network International (GHNI) to improve the health and well-being of its citizens and village life. This extended to their neighbors in Atir Village, and together they created a field where they could grow and share crops. However, the field’s main water supply, a wind-powered irrigation pump, was in desperate need of repair, and no irrigation system existed to water that field. This farmland was a symbol of the peace between Gambella and Atir, and our involvement to fertilize the land would go a long way to bring these two communities together.

We formed our relationship with Gambella and GHNI in the fall of 2017. In that time, we also brought three mentors on board to guide us in this project: Joshua Knight, our lead mentor, who actually worked with GHNI as their Program Engineer; Ron Stauffer, a windmill expert who gave us crucial guidance in repairing the windmill and well system; and Lucas Kingston, a hydrogeologist who taught us about the underground water supply the windmill and irrigation system will take from. As our chapter’s first project with this community and NGO, we hoped to make a lasting impact that perhaps even future projects could contribute to.

While Gambella had numerous other areas of developmental need, our chapter chose to focus on Gambella’s water collection and irrigation systems because we thought it addressed one of the community’s most pressing issues. Additionally, we believed the project could serve as a sort of catalyst to address more of the community’s problems. From an educational standpoint, the problems we focused on in Gambella were undoubtedly challenging, and posed interesting and interdisciplinary engineering concepts. Our team was excited to use our knowledge of engineering in making a significant impact for this disadvantaged community. By increasing the community’s access to water and food security, the team hoped to ultimately improve the community’s health and developmental ability.

OUR PROJECT

Our project consisted of three areas of concern: the well/windmill system that pumped the groundwater up, the nearby storage tank that housed the pumped water, and the irrigation system that would efficiently transport the water to the farmland. Each topic had a respective committee within the team dedicated to evaluate existing problems, potential solutions, and implications of those solutions. The well/windmill committee worked closely with the original builder of the windmill and the original borehole driller to assess why the system broke and what steps needed to be taken in order to permanently fix it. The storage/filtration committee worked to determine what improvements needed to be made to the existing storage tank in order to ensure that the community would have constant access to clean water. Lastly, the irrigation committee evaluated numerous irrigation techniques, and decided which system would be most beneficial to Gambella’s farming needs.

Aside from the overall effectiveness of our chosen solutions, we also needed to consider less obvious implications. The present and future costs to the community and our chapter, the ability for community members to maintain whatever system we implemented, and even the politics of our designs played an important role in deciding how to move the project forward.

For example, drip irrigations systems are known for being incredibly efficient and environmentally friendly. They’re cost effective and fairly easy to implement considering they’re above ground. At face value this system appears like a no-brainer. However, we also needed to evaluate how the source water (known for having high-salinity,) might clog the drip holes, or how this unfamiliar irrigation technique might be difficult for the community to maintain. Lastly, this system has a lot of easily-accessible parts and materials. Could this prompt a community member or someone from a nearby community to take/break pieces of the drip irrigation system for their own use? Would the community have the funds, knowledge, and motivation to repair or replace the materials that get stolen? Because one of our main goals was to have our project be sustainable, these were the kinds of questions we needed to be cognizant of on top of the technicality of the solutions themselves.

In May of 2018, 8 team members and our mentor Joshua travelled to Gambella for 10 days to conduct our “Assessment Trip.” The goal of this trip was to get a concrete understanding of the problems we needed to address. This included taking measurements of the storage tank; working with the original windmill builder, Mike Harries, to assess and measure the damage of the windmill and borehole; using GPS tracking devices to map the farmland and other areas of interest; and of course speaking with community members and leaders to comprehend their concerns and expectations of our project.

The trip was a great success. Our team landed at the airport in Nairobi and was immediately greeted by Wubshet Mengesha, the GHNI representative who would look after us during our time there. We spent the next day traveling by car to a small town called Isiolo, an area about 20 minutes outside of Gambella, where we would be staying. We found our rooms at the Catholic center that hosted us, and we mingled with local residents to learn about their lives. We even played soccer with the schoolchildren across the street!

Once we were settled in, our team was ready to get to work. In Gambella, our team worked together to take the measurements and conduct the interviews we needed. Some of us took water samples at various locations, measured the elevation gain between the windmill and the storage tank, hiked the perimeter of the 50 acre farmland while taking GPS coordinates, and disassembled parts of the windmill while making a few repairs. Most importantly, we got to know the community. Everyday we met with the community leaders to discuss our project and other problems the community was facing, and we even spent a significant amount of time playing with the children. Gaining the trust of the community was essential to our project, as we wanted to express our commitment to them and wanted to confirm their interest in our help.

After our work was completed, our team had a little extra time before they had to fly home. We decided the best way to spend it would be going on safari! We arrived at Samburu National Reserve around sunrise, and spent the morning driving through the park to see the wildlife. We saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, crocodiles, gazelles, and many other animals, some unique the park itself. After a week of hard work in the sun, this was a perfect way to relax and enjoy the beauty of Africa.

After the trip, we spent the summer completing our Post-Assessment Document, which detailed the specifics of what we accomplished on our trip. All of the members present on the trip and all of our mentors contributed to the 40-page technical document, and everyone gained valuable experience in expressing complicated engineering material. We then began the “Alternative Analysis Phase” of a typical EWB project timeline, and started working on the Alternative Analysis Document. In this phase of the project, we pulled from what we learned on the assessment trip to examine our possible solutions (alternatives) and weigh them against each other. Once each alternative was thoroughly outlined and compared, we picked our “preferred alternative.” This solution represented what our team believed to best address Gambella’s problems regarding its windmill, storage tank, and irrigation system. In the next phase of the project (the “implementation phase”) we designed and engineered the solution.

We greatly enjoyed working with the Gambella community to address its windmill, water storage, and irrigation system! We are currently working on two new projects: one in San Bernardino, California, and the other in Yannani, Bolivia!