Engineers Without Borders

COLORADO SPRINGS PROFESSIONAL CHAPTER
ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS
OFFICER MEETING MINUTES

Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Location: 1521 Hancock Expressway, CS, CO
Attendees: Matt Grimes, Nicole Mosby, David Longrie, Lisa Barbato

Financial Update (Nicole Mosby):
• Loan application to corporate has been placed on hold due to the fact that EWB is at the end of the fiscal year.
• ITT has committed a donation of $500 to the Colorado Springs Professional chapter to support startup costs
• Action Items:
1. None identified at this time.
• Parking Lot:
1. None identified at this time.

Marketing Update (All):
• Corp of Engineers presentation given by Joseph Rasmussen and David Longrie
• Nicole is coordinating with Connie King of Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to set up a time to present on EWB
• EWB Regional Workshop is Oct 25. Chris will be attending for our group.
• Action Items:
1. None identified at this time.
• Parking Lot:
1. Could include EWB communications in local ASCE newsletters since there was EWB communications in ASCE at the national level.
2. Need updated presentation that we can use to tell our story. read more »

The project application is nearly completed for the Zuncallo, Comucala Irrigation Project!  I’ll publish a project summary shortly. Here are a few extracts:

Country: Bolivia

Region/State: La Paz/Camacho

Location in Country: 310 km NW of La Paz

Communities: Zuncallo, Comucala

The mission is to provide social, economic, and engineering assistance to the above communities for a period of at least five years. These communities are located high in the Andes mountains in western Bolivia where Zuncallo is home to 100 families and Comucala has 60 families. Farming is the primary occupation with most plots being one to two acres in size. In order to sustain and grow the agriculture business, a reliable source of irrigation is needed for both communities.

Our initial focus is to propose a solution to the village’s irrigation and drinking water needs. We intend to monitor and follow up with the villages to determine if the initial solutions were successful; and then to develop other solutions which will enable these small-farm enterprises to become more profitable.

Positive impacts include cleaner and safer drinking water for the inhabitants of the village. This will increase the overall health of the people by reducing sickness and death related to water-borne diseases. With the implementation of an irrigation system we expect the village will be able to grow higher-value cash crops over a longer growing season. This will allow the people to more effectively market their agricultural goods and generate a higher level of income thus increasing their standard of living.

The villages are 75% Catholic and 25% Protestant. The people speak the Aymara language and are of native Bolivian descent.

The initial site assessment visit is scheduled for June 2009.

The AFA Student Chapter will hold an informational meeting on Tuesday, October 28th. Contact: Adam Comer,  C1C USAFA/CS37 [C09Adam.Comer@usafa.edu] for details.

Chapter Goals

Navajo Nation

Team lead: Adam Comer
· Have housing designs completed
· Work with local colleges on job/educational program
· Committed labor supply
· Initial funding in place
· Have advisor in place
· Consistent funding
· Community colleges have working program to award credit for labor and provide persistent expertise
· Annual trips for implementation and maintenance/training
· Improvements made on design

AFRICOM/HOA

Team Lead: Lindsey Robinson
· Meet with AF leadership through LtCol Ruch
· Travel to AFRICOM/HOA to further set up program
· Select 1 project/region of the many available
· Set up Summer Ops program to begin this summer, requiring coordination with AFRICOM and CW
· Project should implement Dean’s goals, CW’s goals, and AF’s goals
· Have advisor from DF in place
· Ops trip each summer is expected
· 499s in place, continued push for 491 Capstones so that academic credit is awarded; will have to structure how sophomores and juniors fit into this plan
· Preserve identity and community of EWB
· Begin to consider similar plan with SOUTHCOM

Reach Out (Cameroon)
Contact: Justin Smith
· Come up with specific project
· Travel to Cameroon once to meet Justin and Reach Out to establish good relationship with the NGO
· Develop support base
· Firm funding needed quickly since this will likely not receive AF funding (use rotaries?)
· Get EWB/AF’s goals in line with NGO to maximize productivity
· Have DF advisor in place
· Ambiguous until preliminary goals are more determined and met
· Will most likely need to avoid appearance of military intervention in an NGO zone
· Constantly revaluate program
· Provisions made for funded Olmstead trips or 499s to allow for travel during breaks even though no military coordination or presence will be felt while working with Reach Out