April 1, 2008

Jail & Bail event will raise money for UAB Chapter of Engineers Without Borders planning a well-building trip to South America. Among the "detainees" will be Dean Linda Lucas, Ph.D., of the School of Engineering and Dean Max Michael, M.D., of the School of Public Health, who will show both their support for the project and their good sense of humor on April Fools' Day. The Deans will be "jailed" at noon, Tuesday, April 1 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. outside the UAB Commons on the Green, 900 16th Street South.

A group of University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) engineering and public health students will travel to Peru May 19 to build drinking-water wells and work on reducing water-related illness and death. The project is a partnership between students in UAB's schools of Engineering and Public Health and the UAB chapter of the nonprofit group Engineers Without Borders. In addition to well construction, the volunteer students will teach villagers healthy water-handling tips, hygienic waste treatment, food preparation and safe irrigation. A similar group of UAB students traveled to Peru in 2007 for the same volunteer work. Unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation is a public-health crisis that impacts more than a third of the planet, according to the World Health Organization.