The real meaning of 'value engineering'

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's this image worth to you? For the students of the Engineers Without Borders chapter at the University of Cincinnati, this picture represents years of commitment and thousands of dollars of investment. School children in a rural village in Western Kenya watching water pour from a distribution kiosk. This is the first time these children have seen water from a tap. The first time they've had water available at their school - in any form other than buckets of dirty water collected from ponds on their morning commute. What's this worth?

Its worth the time and effort of a dedicated team of students. It worth financial input from generous family, friends, church members, the University, and others. Its worth strained relationships and self sacrifice. Every day, more than 10,000 children around the world die from a lack of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. More than two billion people - that's one in every three humans on the planet - live in conditions where they haven't witnessed a scene like this.



As shown in this series of pictures, the system designed and constructed by the students utilizes a solar array to generate electric power for a pump which delivers clean ground water to concrete storage tanks constructed uphill of the community. Clean water from the tanks is redistributed down the hill to five kiosks strategically located throughout the village. Old women no longer need to struggle with a foot pump. Young girls don't need to carry forty pounds of water on their heads in jerry cans. Attendance of girls at school should increase. Mothers should be more hydrated and better able to nurse newborns. Sanitation and personal hygiene should improve as water is more readily available for hand washing and proper preparation of food.

The lives of more than 500 people have been positively impacted by this project. And the motivation for greater accomplishment comes from this success.

Personally, I'm as proud as can be of the work of the EWB team at UC. Sure, as reflected in the students' accounts of the project details can always be improved. Engineering in a developing country never goes exactly according to plan (i.e., never forget that long sections of black HDPE pipe experience significant thermal elongation and contraction in the equitorial sun - translation: cut and fit piping early in the morning!) But this dedicated group of students - those who traveled to Kenya and those who worked tirelessly at home to make this trip a success - have achieved a major goal. As a teacher, what more can one wish for one's students?