KU Engineers Without Borders assists 2 Bolivian villages

LAWRENCE — A team of engineering students from the University of Kansas went to Bolivia this summer to build clean bathroom facilities for two villages.

Nine students and two mentors in KU’s Engineers Without Borders chapter visited the villages of Azacilo and Colani in August. The two communities are about a five-minute walk from each other, located high in the Andes Mountains at more than 12,000 feet.

Students built solar-heated showers in Azacilo; in Colani, they built an “eco-latrine.”

"Our goal was to fulfill their need for bathrooms and to keep pollution out of the streams and waterlines,” said Allyson Steinmetz, a junior in mechanical engineering from Shawnee who is president of the service club for the 2019-20 school year.

KU’s Engineers Without Borders club has been visiting Azacilo for more than a decade. Early projects helped bring running water to the remote village — during the last two years, however, students have built nine of the solar-heated showers. The system involves building a water tank on a home’s bathroom roof; the water is then gravity-fed through PVC lines into the shower.

"The only other option is putting a bucket on top of a roof, which would be their way to shower,” Steinmetz said. “We came up with a design to hot water the cheapest and most efficient way we could.”

Steinmetz said the villagers will be able to construct their own showers going forward. "We'll be able to hand them the materials and the design,” she said, “and they have the complete capability to build anything."

Over in Colani, students built their second eco-latrine in two years. The latrines are built out of cinderblocks and bricks, and they include both a solar shower component and a composting section underneath to handle waste.

Steinmetz said she enjoyed her time with the village residents as part of the projects.

"They are so appreciative and so welcoming to us when we get there,” she said. “They provide us with a place to sleep and food to eat. They take good care of everything we make, and they appreciate us and never fail to show us that."

She said students also learned to better handle engineering challenges on the spot.

"When you're in the communities and come across a problem like a leaky showerhead, you have to think through the problem and come to a conclusion like, ‘Oh, there's minerals in the water and that is the reason for clogging of the shower head,’” she said. “The onsite decision-making is a pretty good skill to have."

The students were accompanied to Bolivia by Corey Behrens, program director for the Self Engineering Leadership Fellows Program, and Stephen Collins, a member of the Kansas City chapter of Engineers Without Borders. The KU chapter of Engineers Without Borders was formed in 2008, and participates in service projects both internationally and in the United States.