Thursday, September 13, 2007

Project Breifing

Amazon Promise provided EWB with a wish list


Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Background


Located directly adjacent to Iquitos, Belén is a sprawling river community of some 74,000 people who lack the most basic amenities required for human health. Outdoor defecation, piles of rotting trash and drinking water contamination are rife. Most children are malnourished. Living conditions are cramped. The prevalence of many diseases is extremely high. Maternal and infant mortality rates are also high.

Most people cannot afford health care and government services are under-funded and mostly inadequate. No NGO has a perpetual, organized presence on the ground in Belén, let alone one focused on child and maternal health. The end result is a desperately impoverished population with very limited access to basic health care.

Much of the story repeats itself in the outlying village regions, where the extended stomachs of malnourished, parasite-infested young children are a very common sight. Some of the villages are so remote that the services Amazon Promise provides are their only source of health care.

Amazon Promise is expanding its health-care delivery in Peru with plans to build Promesa de Belén, a fully operational, 6000-square-foot clinic that will serve the needy community of Belén. The local government has donated the land we need; we're now actively working with an architect and pursuing funds for construction.

The New York professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has taken the lead with the EWB student chapters at Binghamton and Brown Universities in collaborating with Amazon Promise to design and construct the Belen Clinic.

EWB-USA is a network of practicing engineers and engineering students whose mission is to promote sustainable development in such areas as water supply and sanitation, housing and construction, energy, transportation and communication, income generation, and employment creation. Over the last year, EWB-Binghamton students completed two site visits in Belen, and have been working with local architects and engineers to develop waste management and clean water systems, and alternative energy sources. The EWB Brown students visited Belen in early 2007, and have been focusing their efforts on the clinic design and structural development.

The EWB-NY project team has split into several working groups including Structural/Geotechnical Engineering, Water/Sanitation, Electrical, Mechanical, Construction, Sustainability and Architecture, and Fundraising/Marketing

We now have over 25 engineers who have voluntarily dedicated themselves to this project, and they will continue to work closely with architects and civil engineers on the ground in Peru to see the project through to completion.