Projects

Current Projects

Bolivia

The Uraqueni Water Project will provide a clean and reliable source of water to a group of three communities located in the hills surrounding the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia.  The project’s design consists of a water storage system and a water distribution infrastructure designed to give hundreds of families a long-term supply of clean drinking water.

Uganda

The Bukhaweka Project aims to provide clean water and solar power to the Bukhaweka Vocational Training Centre near Mbale, Uganda.  The centre provides much needed education to the rural community of Bukhaweka.  The project will couple rainwater harvesting with well water to supply clean drinking water to the centre and the surrounding community.  In addition, a solar power system will be installed to power the computers of the centre and further the education of the students.

Kenya

The Maseno Hospital Water and Power Project is located in Western Kenya and involves providing a long-term supply of clean water and reliable energy to a small hospital.  The hospital’s current source of water is an often muddy supply of municipal water, which is irregularly provided. The hospital sometimes goes months without water. Their only current alternative is a rainwater catchment system; however, rainwater runoff is usually unclean and short-lived during the dry season. The hospital experiences power-rationing periods two days a week and many unscheduled power outages, making it difficult to perform surgeries and carry out their mission.students.

India

The India Project is EWB-Central Houston’s longest ongoing effort.  On December 26, 2004, an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia triggered a tsunami that devastated the coastal regions of South Asia.  Since 2005, EWB-Central Houston has been collaborating with other EWB chapters from across the U.S. to help rebuild the coastal villages of Andhra Pradesh, India.  Through the years, EWB has installed solar power generation, rainwater harvesting, water wells, and water pumping stations for the many villagers displaced by the tsunami.

Completed Projects

El Salvador

The Colonia Esmeralda Project, completed in the summer of 2007, gave the community of Colonia Esmeralda long-term clean drinking water for its nearly 300 residents and erosion control of the community’s only access road.  Colonia Esmeralda, located on the southeast edge of San Salvador, is a community that emerged as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War when rural residents fled the countryside to seek the safety of the city.   In 2007, EWB-Central Houston helped the community develop the public works infrastructures that they needed.

Nicaragua

The Bernadino Diaz Ochoa Project was a collaboration with the EWB-Rice Student Chapter.  After three trips to Nicaragua over the course of 2 years, the EWB-Rice project team had the knowledge and expertise to design a straw-bale health clinic for the rural community of Bernadino Diaz Ochoa in San Juan del Sur.  The clinic also needed a reliable source of power and water.  Members of EWB-Central Houston traveled to Nicaragua in May of 2007 to implement a solar power system and a rainwater catchment system for the clinic.  The clinic now benefits the many residents of the surrounding communities.