EWB Wins a Jefferson Award & $250 Grant

On Saturday, our chapter participated in a Service Symposium at the Duke energy center.  Students in gradeshool, highschool, and college all competed presented their projects and shared ideas.  Along with having some fun meeting other service-minded people, we were competing for mini-grants. (categories were broken down by school level and impact scope-we were college-level international-impact)

Based on voting done by other projects, EWB won our category, and got a Jefferson award, and along with it, a $250 mini-grant for our work!

Special thanks goes out to Vinny for organizing our EWB presence there and to the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) for telling about this in the first place.

Assessment Trip Success

This entry is a little belated, but better late than never, I suppose. Time got away from me a bit when I got home from the assessment trip, what with the start of my first co-op job. It’s incredible how busy we all keep ourselves here. We don’t know any better, it’s part of our culture. That is one of the many striking differences between home and Otho Abwao. We are always on the move, accomplishing more, learning more, doing more, while they operate on “Kenya Time”- they’ll get around to their tasks, but nothing is so important that it can’t wait. But I digress.
I would definitely call the trip a wonderful success. We accomplished everything we set out to do, and more. We gathered all the necessary assessment information for the Otho Abwao school project. We administered enough health surveys across the community to label the water system extremely effective by virtue of drastic decreases in water borne illness cases. Finally, we repaired several flaws in the design of the water system, including the roofs on the water tanks and the vulnerability of the solar panels to lightning, to make it more robust and sustainable. Thus, from an engineering standpoint, we succeeded very well. More importantly, though, I think we all grew a little bit as students and as global citizens in a way that professors can’t simulate in a classroom. Doing the design work and fundraising for our projects back home is all well and good, and should be commended, but actually traveling to the communities with whom we partner to perform the work at ground zero shows true commitment and purpose. It shows that we are willing to take on the most pressing issues of our generation with zeal and ingenuity, both of which are absolutely essential if any solutions are to be found. As the rest of the world chugs along the road of progress at an ever increasingly rapid rate, how will we look back at those less fortunate and ensure they are not left behind to fend for themselves? It will be one of the great challenges my generation will address. They say it is typical of college students to work for a cause greater than themselves. I wish this were not typical of only college students. I certainly hope the drive to care for others does not die in me among the engineering job and family awaiting me post-graduation. I hope it does not die in those with whom I traveled this spring break, as well. We all certainly have the potential to be parts of the solutions to the world’s problems. The question is, are we driven to turn that potential into tangible results?
I realize this is a fairly scatter-brained post. I think it was more for my benefit than anything else. It helps to hit the pressure-release valve on all these thoughts that have been bouncing around my skull for the last few weeks. I hope readers can draw something meaningful and helpful from this collection of sentiments. If projects like these strike your fancy, feel free to come check us out anytime and learn more of what we’re all about. Most of all, though, I hope you experience the joy of that typical college student characteristic: working towards a cause greater than yourself. After all, what higher cause is there?

Election Results

Last night EWB had elections for next year's exec positions.  Thanks to everyone who ran and congratulations to the 2010-2011 exec board.

The exec board is as follows...
President - Vinny Travee
VP Internal - Jim Moyer
VP External - Tom Meyer
Treasurer - Sarah Hrinko
Secretary - Morgen Schroeder

In two weeks, the new exec will review applications and choose leaders for our appointed positions.  It's gonna be a good year!

EWB Featured in the News Record!

Check out today's issue of the News Record(our student newspaper for those not at UC, in case you were wondering)  Our spring trip is featured in one of their articles.

If you're not on campus, you can read the whole article online here: http://www.newsrecord.org/living/spotlight/ewb-uses-spring-break-to-make-a-difference-1.2213175

EWB Football Team: Final Score 7-7

Here's my first in a series of short stories & reflections on the trip...  One of the highlights of the Spring trip for me was our final day with the school.  With most of our work like health surveys and school assessment winding down, and the last little bit waiting on supplies Charlie & Jimmy were getting in Kisumu, we had a chance to spend the last day with the kids.

Safa had bought a football (soccer) ball in the Amsterdam airport, and finally managed to buy a pump for it in Kisumu. We saved this big reveal for the last day.  Once he reached into his bag and pulled out the inflated ball(no branded with a sharpie C-paw) the kids gave out a collective cheer.  After running around the field a few times chasing the ball in a mob, some order set in.  Every 10 minutes, two more teams of students would switch out playing each other.
This was all leading up to our turn, when we would face off against the kids.  As our turn approached it started to rain and the field quickly became a giant mud puddle.  Finally it was time, and along with some of the teachers from Otho Abwao, we faced the all-star team of the Otho Abwao school.

In the pouring rain, we gave it our all and managed to come up with an early lead.  The rest of Otho Abwao's school children watched intently from the sidelines cheering us on.  Every time we scored a goal, we'd celebrate in ridiculous fashion such as arms flailing like an airplane or over-the-top chest bumps, which caused tons of laughter from our spectators.

However, the students had a ridiculous amount of stamina and soon they were catching up to us.  The score was 7-6 us, and our entire team exhausted, soaking wet, and covered in mud from while still still having a blast.  We agreed to play a sudden death finale: next goal wins.  While I would draw this out and build on the suspense of missed goals and extreme athleticism, I'm guessing you read the post title, and therefore know that the Otho Abwao children emerged victorious from an intense and incredibly fun game.

As you can see from the first photo, we definitely gave it our all, and were pretty serious about our soccer.  In future trips, we might need to add a question about soccer skills on the trip application.  We also might have to start doing daily practice to hone the skills of our team.  This definitely was a blast and despite losing, it felt amazing being drenched, dirty and exhausted, knowing you'd given every once of effort while having an immensely fun time.  But until next time, Otho Abwoa has a new soccer ball as their trophy from their victory of the first ever EWB football tournament.

Otho Abwao Assessment: Productive & Fun

While you'll be hearing lots more about it in the coming weeks, I just wanted to post a quick update about our trip. We got a lot of stuff done, from surveys and soil samples for school assessment to adding tank coverings and adding new taps to the water system.  Plus we were able to make progress on other initiatives too such as a microfinance project, our visual penpal program and health surveys(which showed some excellent improvement in health, assumed to be in part to their new access to clean water).
There was plenty of fun too, from a soccer game vs. the school's all-star team during a rainstorm, to navigating the markets in Nairobi.  It was a blast!

Again, look for lots more about the trip once our team(me included) shakes off their jetlag and can actually process this amazing experience.