Contact: Susan Lassetter
Photo by: Beth Wynn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State's student chapter of Engineers Without Borders is capturing national attention as its parent organization earns an award for international humanitarian work.
Engineers Without Borders-USA recently was honored with the Engineering and Construction Contracting Association's 2014 Spirit Award at a ceremony in Orlando, Florida. The recognition singled out the university chapter's water project in Zambia as an example of work with far-reaching effects but fraught with logistical challenges.
With headquarters in Denver, Colorado, Engineers Without Borders-USA has a membership of 14,700 spread among MSU and some 280 other chapters. Its members are involved in nearly 700 community development projects in 39 countries. For more, visit www.ewb-usa.org.
Formed in 2011 and open to all majors, the MSU chapter has more than 100 members. The 2014 Zambian student work team included five females and one male.
Chapter president Laura Wilson of Diamondhead was on hand to represent the land-grant institution. While the junior environmental engineering major knew the African project had helped secure the organization's award, she was surprised nevertheless when the MSU team earned the special recognition and she was asked to speak about the experience.
"Everyone at the conference was very interested in our project and the organization in general," Wilson said. "It was great to share our story and raise awareness about the problems plaguing so many countries around the world.
"EWB has really changed my life and I was glad to be able to show why the organization deserved this award," the daughter of Duane and Catherine Wilson added.
Once known as Northern Rhodesia, Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa that gained its independence from the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. Slightly larger than Texas, it has a current population of some 14 million.
The MSU team spent two weeks during the late summer completing the first of eight wells they plan to install by 2017 in the Simwatachela Chiefdom. Their work marked the second year of the chapter's five-year effort to bring potable water to thousands of Zambians whose current water supply comes largely from polluted, stagnant pools.
Chapter adviser Dennis Truax said the project--the MSU chapter's first of a kind--"has the potential to improve the lives of thousands of people living in villages throughout Simwatachela," adding, "But installing wells in rural, sub-Saharan Africa is not as easy as drilling them in Mississippi."
Truax, an MSU alumnus who heads the civil and environmental engineering department, and fellow alumnus William C. "Bill" Mitchell of Gulfport, the chapter's technical adviser, accompanied the students. Mitchell is a 1975 civil engineering graduate.
Living for seven days in tents in a village with no power, sanitation or running water, team members experienced many difficulties. In addition to adjusting to life there, they had to learn to overcome technical obstacles that typically arise at remote worksites: flat tires, broken drill rigs, impassable roads and missing tools.
"If there's one thing that this project teaches our students, it's how to be engineers who think on their feet and can solve problems using just the resources on hand," Truax said. "It's a kind of in-the-world experience that most students don't get, and it's just one of the things that makes this such a great opportunity for personal growth for our students."
In addition to Wilson, other student team members included (by hometown):
CLEAR SPRING, Md.--Senior Matthew F. Blair, a civil engineering major and the son of Patricia Blair.
COFFEEVILLE, Ala.--Junior Sally J. White, chapter vice president, who is a microbiology major and the daughter of Michael and Debra Kay White.
JACKSON--Senior Mary K. "Katie" Bryant, a civil engineering major and the daughter of Baker Bryant of Raymond.
STARKVILLE--Senior Kristen M. Sauceda, a civil engineering major and the daughter of Ronald and Kimberly Hayes.
VICKSBURG--Senior Elizabeth N. "Liz" Rayfield, a chemical engineering major and the daughter of David and Lisa Rayfield.
Additional information about the Engineering and Construction Contracting Association is found at www.ecc-conference.org.
MSU is online at www.msstate.edu.