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Courtesy of the EWB Chapter
at UCLA
Graduate student Philip Wegge digs out a hole for a septic
tank for the clinic. Students work on two additional restrooms
located next to the clinic. |
In a land far, far away
Student engineers help build clinic
by chris sutton
ucla today
The world inhabited by 150 villagers of a remote hill tribe settlement
in Thailand is a universe away from Los Angeles. They live in one-room
huts, share one public phone, have one pickup truck and a few TVs.
Not even the mail is delivered to their outpost, surrounded by mountainous
jungle.
There is one thing, however, that the inhabitants of Samli now
have after a visit last summer by six UCLA undergraduate and graduate
engineering students. Last August, the villagers officially opened
a new 10-room health clinic, complete with a lab, pharmacy, examination
rooms, an overnight room and living quarters for a doctor.
They no longer have to travel for up to a week to the nearest treatment
center to get medical care for a life-threatening illness.
The gift of a clinic to these members of the Lisu tribe came from
members of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB), among them, six
students from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied
Science. The nonprofit organization works on environmentally and
economically sustainable engineering projects in developing countries.
This year, 1,100 volunteers, most of them students or professional
engineers, worked on 50 projects in 22 countries as diverse as Mali,
Haiti, Afghanistan and Thailand.
“As an engineering student, I felt I needed something more
than just classroom work,” said Philip Wegge, an environmental
engineering graduate student who is president of the UCLA chapter
of EWB. “I wanted the hands-on experience, and more importantly,
I wanted to help communities that are less fortunate than ours.”
So late last June after months of planning, Wegge and five other
UCLA students — Jonathan Hogstad, Lisa Jambusaria, Ismael
Nawfal, Regina Quan and Diego Rosso — traveled 24 hours to
reach Samli to take over the project from Columbia University students,
who had built the frame and roof of the clinic.
Working nine- and 10-hour days under two professional engineers,
the UCLA students set up the clinic’s electrical plant, plumbing
and water lines, installed sinks, insulation and ventilation, and
put up the siding and interior walls. While some already had carpentry
and plumbing skills, others had never touched tools before.
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Courtesy of the EWB Chapter
at UCLA
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From the beginning, however, it was clear this was no ordinary
construction job. Engineering solutions had to be sensitive to local
customs, the students found.
“We had to understand what these people needed,” said
Rosso. “We couldn’t just go in and say, ‘You have
a problem, and we know how to fix it because we are engineers.’
That’s not the way it works.”
For their part, the villagers warmly welcomed the students. After
work, the students spent evenings learning what they could of the
Lisu language while the villagers picked up some English. “They
did not treat us like foreigners,” Rosso said. “They
welcomed us as if we were part of the village. It was wonderful.”
On the students’ last day in Samli, the villagers re-created
their annual New Year’s celebration and invited the students,
some wearing Lisu traditional dress, to link hands and dance, led
by a village elder playing a traditional flute-like instrument.
“The most important thing that I learned in Thailand was
the dignity of these people,” said Rosso. “They work
for $6 a day, and everywhere I went in Thailand, I didn’t
see anyone begging for money. Everyone had a job, worked hard. There
is a strong pride and dignity in the conduct of their lives.”
Next year, students will travel to Tibet to work on another project.
For more information on the student group, see www.seas.ucla.edu/ewb.
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