UCF’s Engineers Without Borders team will make its third trip to Haiti in May to help bring clean water to the town of Mare Brignol. The community of 7,000 people located in southeast Haiti is one of the poorest villages in the country. Asaph Almauk, EWB-UCF’s new President will be leading the team’s third assessment trip to the area where they will focus on community building and education. The team will continue its broad-scale water analysis to determine household income, water quality and storage with the goal of setting up slow sand-filters around the community to treat water which is ripe with bacteria and E.coli.
The team’s goal is to bring locally sustainable technology to the region for improving water quality. The team will also look into improving sanitation by introducing composting latrines so that the waste can be used as fertilizer. implementation of the projects is slated for the team’s December visit. Another project being planned is a 30,000-gallon rain catchment cistern which would bring an estimated 130,000 gallons of freshwater to Mare Brignol each year.
Joining the team for the May trip are Chris Orlando and Ed Hayes, from the International Medical Outreach club of UCF. They will be conducting health and hygiene classes, conducting health surveys and setting up temporary clinics to administer medicine to the community.