April 3, 2008
• Engineering students will build wells
• Public health students will teach water and food safety
• Trip is May 19-29
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A group of University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) engineering and public health students will travel to South America this summer to build drinking-water wells and work on reducing water-related illness and death.
The project is a partnership between students at UAB's schools of Engineering and Public Health, and the UAB chapter of the nonprofit group Engineers Without Borders.
"We will build sustainable wells to provide clean, safe water to four villages outside Iquitos, Peru, in the Amazon jungle," said Andrew Uehlin, a UAB biomedical engineering student and president of the Engineers Without Borders chapter. "Collaborating with villagers in the construction of the wells helps foster a sense of pride and ownership."
WATER & WELLNESS
In addition to well construction, the volunteer students will teach villagers healthy water-handling tips, hygienic waste treatment, food preparation and safe irrigation.
"Clean drinking water is not enough. You've got to show people the proper way to collect water from the well, how to wash their food and their hands before they eat and emphasis basic hygiene," said April Agne, a UAB public health student and one of several Peru project coordinators.
The students will travel to Peru for 10 days starting May 19. A similar group of UAB students traveled to Peru in 2007 for the same volunteer work.
To raise money for this year's event the students held a mock "jail and bail" that included UAB deans Linda Lucas, Ph.D. of the School of Engineering and Max Michael, M.D., of the School of Public Health. The fundraising skit was held outdoors on the UAB campus April 1, in honor of April Fools' Day.
About $4,000 has been raised toward the trip, and donations are still being accepted. For more information send a message to auehlin@uab.edu.
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. Globally it is estimated that 1.8 million people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases, with more than 80 percent of that death toll is attributed to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene.