Our Engineers for International Development (EfID) chapter has been awarded a travel grant from the GMU Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities and Research. This puts in place the final piece of their fundraising for their summer 2014 project.
For the past two years, EfID's members have worked on a water supply and distribution project in the community of Sabana Grande located in Estili, Nicaragua. In their trip last summer they installed a water pump and pressure switch control powered by a solar array of three solar panels , a water distribution system consisting of 1,500 feet of PVC pipelines, a pressure tank, several isolation valves, security fencing, and six water stations throughout the community. The EfID team from last summer is shown in the photo, including (L to R) Michael Shuler, Kenex Sevilla, Ashley Timm, Leonarda Palacios (one of the community members and EfID's main contact), Rony Avalos, Matthew Doyle, and Santosh Neupane.
The goals for the summer 2014 trip include furnishing and installing a 10,000 liter elevated storage tank, installing an electrical storage system (battery back-up), and completing the water distribution system. Since only six water stations were completed during the first phase of implementation, EfID plans on installing 5,000 linear feet more of pipeline bringing water directly to each of the 26 houses in the community.
