Partner Spotlight: Engineers Without Borders – Delaware Professional Chapter

This week, Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Delaware Professional Chapter will be back in Kenya at Imurtot Primary School. Hosted by the Water is Life Kenya team, EWB will make repairs on its installed water harvesting system at Imurtot and scout for a new project location. The Chapter is made of professional engineers who devote vacation time to developing this clean water project in Kenya. Since 2016, they have been working in partnership with Water is Life Kenya.

Project Site & Focus

Imurtot Primary School is located in the Mount Kilimanjaro highlands, close to where the Hope for Widows groups meet for training. The school has had a long list of water problems, including a dry borehole attempt. Previously, water was available during the rainy season but lacking during the dry season. WILK hoped for a way to provide water during the dry season, so EWB helped innovate a solution.

EWB visited Imurtot in 2016 to determine how to construct a robust, reliable water storage system. This was the beginning of their multiphase project which was completed in 2020, but now needs repairs. This is the first time since 2020 that EWB has had the chance to revisit Imurtot and Kajiado County due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

The Rainwater Catchment System

The school has four buildings. During their first visit, the team outfitted one building with gutters, pipes, and water tanks. They had to design special gutters after deciding the standard-sized gutters would be too small. This first phase of the project resulted in three water storage tanks, each holding 5,000 liters.

The following EWB trips included installing three other gutter-pipe-tank systems to the other buildings. The result was a wider water catchment and storage system that holds over 100,000 liters of water. When EWB last visited, the team was happy that the system had been successfully collecting and storing water during rainfall.

Over the last two years, however, the drought has impacted even this project. Without rainfall, empty tanks and pipes are starting to deteriorate. Now that EWB can return to the project site, it can determine how to repair the system so that the rain that does fall can be properly stored again. It can also decide the best location to install another water harvesting system in the Mount Kilimanjaro highland area, which would benefit from the engineering expertise that EWB brings with them.

A Partnership for a Better World

This partnership began because our Co-Founder, Joyce Tannian, knew some of the local EWB engineers in Delaware. Confident of WILK’s on-ground logistics and EWB’s unique ability to engineer complex solutions, the two groups joined forces, forming a partnership that works for the good of others.

Because this partnership, the kids at Imurtot can worry about their classwork instead of collecting water. And the benefits of this system will continue to catch water in Kenya as EWB scouts the site fo their next project. We hope that, along with our borehole projects, we can offer the best solutions for the areas we serve in Kajiado County.