Engineers Without Borders

Kenya Meeting Minutes: 6-27-09

June 30, 2009 at 9:41 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

First meeting with mentors at Garden Home Shari’s in Portland

Attended:

Aparna, Courtney, Mikkel, Justin, Adam, Birdie, Gordon, Andy

Alternatives:

o Steven Hodges; last on list for alternatives
o Scott; alternative for Aparna
o Courtney; first on list for alternatives

International EWB conference; Justin and Aparna attended

o Assessment trip
+ About community driven projects
+ We will do what the community needs the most and is most passionate about
+ Going to talk and listen and see what project the community wants
+ Some groups
# Have taken control of the project without community agreement that the project is what they wanted
# Works better to talk to community and have understanding of what they want and what can be done
+ Sustainability of project is very important
+ The project has to come from the community, we are just a partner with the community
# The community needs to own the project
# Asking what solutions the community thinks is possible
# Leyla has taken some ownership with a water council

EWB Kenya

o Question of what road blocks that EWB Kenya may put into place if we do not work with them and do not sign the memo
o NJ professionals did a project in Kenya
+ Memo issue also
# Right before assessment trip the professional group had everything figured out and did not need EWB Kenya
# That was the last experience with EWB Kenya and had no further problems

o Jerry

+ Not menace in community, trying luck to make some money off of community
+ Helped community put application together
+ Asked community about application, Jerry helped send it to the US

Other NGO’s in the community

+ One NGO

+ space out water projects
# three in surrounding areas

+ another group has done a water project 3 km away

+ another school in the US created a well in the Bondo village
+ SW of Bondo village = Leyla

Ideas for funding; Rotorary

+ find which one supports water
+ Rotorary with El Salvador helps

Banquet

+ February

+ Bringing back artifacts and crafts to auction at banquet

Fundraising

+ Obtain good media to present

+ Video during trip
# Someone in charge to do this and learn how to do it well
# The donators can learn the story of the community

How long after assessment would start next trip

+ can’t travel in December or January too hot
+ right now winter season

Next trip next June

+ dependent on grants we get for money
+ wont apply for major grants until we know what we are doing
+ next trip is implementation trip
+ some chapters need a few assessment trip
+ need to design implementation and deal with contractor

assessment trip

+ looking at what the community wants for water
+ in application asks for well

+ but have river
+ grow sugar cane
+ see if need for well
+ can offer them guidance maybe filter river water
+ could do a couple of different systems
+ powering the well with the river
+ technology to bring up well water
# merry go rounds

during dry season less amounts of water

+ how big of storage system will they need
+ rain gauge or river gauge

+ daily, weekly, measure this then send it to this monthly
+ don’t know how big the river is

Water for drinking and irrigation

+ Education for water use
+ Make sure that everyone has water before water is used for irrigation

maps

+ detailed area photographs

+ Mark will take some pictures of river
# Going sometime in July

Want out of the trip

+ required

+ health assessment
+ survey of the area
# GIS mapping
* Adam still hasn’t heard back
o Forestry prof usually does training
o Set up workshop to learn how to use system
* Mapped out different areas and everything we see
* Take two units
* Accuracy needs to sit on a point for a while
o Accuracy to 1 meter with just walking around
* Set up control and then use compass and pacing
* How are we going to distribute water?
* Implement station to learn about health
* Drastic elevation changes issues
o What type of pumps
o How to get up water
o What type of material, how much
* 400 people? don’t know how many people
o Bondo village
+ House along road and then property extended behind houses
# Roudementary survey
# Compass and pacing to make map
+ Whose got control in the community
# What does the community think of project?

Andy did some work with developing projects

+ What scared him about EWB they did not do sustainable projects scared him, he is glad to hear that we are doing sustainable  projects
+ Development projects

+ Things can fall through and then it’s gone

+ Lesson he learned

# Different cultures don’t have that same frame reference frame
* One project
o Asking community to fundraise a little bit
+ Problems
+ Not open minded to problem solving
+ We are different, logical, educated, discussion may make no sense to community
+ Continue to seek out someone in community that knows both sides
# Mark?
* Is water going to be taken or project destroy?

+ El Salvador

+ Cut piping

+ Bondo village have well

+ Centralized water system
# Don’t have resources to implement water system in community on their own
+ What was used in Bondo willage?

Andy can he travel with us?

+ Approved for funding
+ Can travel
+ Expertise trip would help assessment trip

+ Volunteer for a year
+ More exposed to the experience than others

+ We are struggling on fundraising

+ So would benefit to Andy
* Have four or five people go on trip

+ Doesn’t make sense to bring 5, have to travel in groups of 2

* Project message
o Don’t really have on
* EWB Organization mission statement
o Work to bring every person basic human needs
o Two fold purpose
+ Help world sustainable engineering processes
+ Developing responsible leadership
+ International awareness

+ One group geotechnical group
+ One group health assessment

+ Not able to get to all of houses
+ El Salvador had much variance between houses

Project encompassment

+ 5 year process at least
+ water system up

+ then work on septic systems
+ El Salvador
# Women have bad breathing problems
* Breathing in smoke from in housing fires
o Using correct system
+ Planting trees

Fuel pellet makers

+ From dung, wood
+ To help with fuel source

Implementation trip also has assessment

Multi level assessment all of the time when in country

Dealing with any water problems that come up when implement system

Don’t know what kind of basic human needs they need

Sanitation ideas

+ Bucket flow toilets
+ Filtration systems

Survey put into Swahili

+ Education, 3 and 4 grade education
+ Most children speak English
+ Many adults speak English but not as fluent

Language barrier

+ Cultural differences

IRB at OSU

+ Survey research with human subjects, morally correct
+ Explain

+ We modified survey from El Salvador
+ Had Kenyans look over it
# Marked changes
* Questions of why would you ask this
+ Have survey do not know how final it is

+ Ask about demographic information
+ Ask about respiratory health
+ Added

+ Susanna and meg
# Sent to other group and asked what questions and how asked

+ Contact other NGO’s that have worked in area

+ Mercycorp
# Have professionals who have done survey in area take a look at our survey
# Ask what should we be looking for to figure out where community is at
# Duplicate efforts of others in country who know more about the cultural
# Getting guidance, what are the historical issues that we can keep an eye on
* Get more specifics on what is going on

Duration of trip

+ Spend time socializing
+ Burden for community while there

+ Can go back to bigger village if we are done

+ Buffer couple of days
+ How long would it take to walk the community

+ Walk to different village every day

Tentative schedule

+ Very liberal
+ Reasonable schedule
+ Not in stone

+ Can’t be in stone

Take pictures of us to send to Mark for village

Video conference for meetings

+ Oovoo

+ Low rise video for free
+ 10 minutes then charge

+ Skype

+ As many people with voice
+ Conference calls for professionals is just fine

Meetings

+ Tuesdays 6:30
+ at least conference calls with professionals so they know what’s going on

Safety

+ Narobi travel safety

+ Vans; faster but safety issues with being a smaller target for anyone, and they go recklessly faster
+ Busses; more people, safer but longer

+ War lords, or drug trade in the area research
+ Samoli pirates
+ In this area influence of war lords?
+ Tribal and election problems

+ Kevin; Undergrad just graduated
# Cultural issues
# Politics/violence
* Election à riots
o Standard for election cycles
+ 2012 will be some problems
o In between elections it is fine
o 60 party system for elections
+ each tribe runs their own part
+ doesn’t have to geographically based
+ whoever had dominant tribal influence
+ local level not as much trouble
# because have only one tribe
# country wide elections who has most influence
+ Magori district
# What tribal groups?
* Bondo village and Leyla same tribal groups?
o Where are the tribal lines?
o Will some other groups around Leyla want the water we bring in
o Sorounding groups come in
+ Ask community how they are they going to deal with this

Problems with receiving meeting minutes

+ Problem with formatting
+ Move to downloadable minutes?
+ Put minutes on the EWB Kenya Wiki?

Wiki; Kendra has created and will be able to use once she returns on Thursday

Traveling to Leyla with help from Mark

+ Will meet Marks good friend in Nariobi
+ Marks friend will set travelers up for a hotel and a ride to Kisii
+ From there will go to Migori
+ Meet Leyla community member in Migori they then will bring us to Leyla

Cell phone-travelers will purchase oen

+ Incoming calling is free

From minutes create a list of what we need to do while in country