Engineers Without Borders

Project Meeting 1/05/09

January 6, 2009 at 6:40 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

December project report:

1.    We successfully completed rainwater catchment tanks (for dry season storage) and barrels for three houses

• Wash stations were also included at each home.
• Overall the project was completed without any major issues.

2.   We ran over budget by at least $2000

• Some materials were more expensive than expected, and we needed more of others than originally anticipated. Transportation costs have also increased since the last trip
• The project fund was depleted with the initial expected costs of the trip, so this will have to come as a loan from the general fund for now.
• The board is unhappy that no one was contacted for the approval of additional funds, so this issue will have to be worked out for future trips.

3.   Surveying for future projects:

• Cerro Segovia – 3 more houses don’t have access to water.  They could benefit from a rainwater catchment system
• Lower Las Mercedes – 7 houses are still without water. They want a gravity fed system, but we are unsure of the technical feasibility

4.   Public Health – We presented findings from previous trips back to the communities. We also introduced Tippy-Tap hand washing stations.

Grant writing -We are out of money and currently in debt to the EWB general fund

• Tonight we started applying for grants for future projects.
• The first grant we have started work on is for Cerro Segovia because the feasibility of the Las Mercedes system hasn’t been completely worked out yet.

Lower Las Mercedes would involve a 400-500m length of pipe with only 70ft of head.

Cerro Segovia would be very similar technically to last project; three rainwater catchment systems.