Representatives from the Northwestern chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World will travel to three international sites this Spring Break, a record number for the club.
“This trip is really exciting,” said Nicaragua Project Manager Andrew Dai. “I wanted to be involved with this project because it really takes the theoretical part of engineering, which can be frustrating, and makes what we are leaning applicable and real.”
The ESW team will send five students to Teustepe, Nicaragua for a week to build and install biogas digesters that will turn animal manure into methane gas for cooking and lighting in rural areas.
But none of this would have been possible without receiving grants.
The grant application process, which required hours of writing and revision, paid off in the form of two grants from Thanksgiving Fund and the American Endowment Foundation, according to the NU ESW 2009 sponsorship packet. The trip is completely funded by grant money.
“I was really glad when these grants pulled through,” said Dai, a McCormick junior. “We are working really well as a team, and I think that these bio digesters will really improve the quality of life for the people in Nicaragua.”
ESW teams have been working in Chagres and Portobelo, Panama intermittently since 2005, and they will be returning to the sites this spring. The team of students in Chagres will work on solar panel installation and education, while the Portobelo team will attempt to solve a septic tank problem that is causing health concerns in the town.
“We have definitely grown over the past few years,” said Virginia Palmer, co-president of ESW. “It is a very student-run organization, so the more people on campus care about it, the easier that it is to do big international projects.”
In preparation for their trip, the Nicaragua team spent a weekend in February preparing to build the biogas digesters. The team brought in a professional who has installed the same machinery in different countries throughout the world, Dai said.
“This project is not about condescending to third-world countries,” said Junzi Shi, a Nicaragua project member who is the only Weinberg student on the team. “We know that we (the United States) have a long way to go environmentally as well, but we can implement good environmental practices in other countries that have less of an infrastructure already in place.”
Shi helped with the grant-writing process in the fall and said the team is still looking for funding to send a representative back to Nicaragua this summer to ensure the biogas digesters are still working.
“We really want to emphasize that this is meant to be a long-term solution,” Shi said. “We are doing everything we can to make sure that these digesters really help improve the quality of life for people.”
ESW was established at NU in 2003 as a chapter of the national organization. ESW runs several local and international projects aimed at improving environmental quality through innovative solutions, according to its Web site.
“These trips are a great way to help expand ESW,” said Palmer, a McCormick senior. “These projects allow us to share what we have learned about sustainability.”
