We have also been donated £2 500 by Raincatcher, a UK charity set up to give grants to people building rainwater harvesting projects in Tanzania. We now have enough money for this project to go ahead!
Yay to all that!
Saturday, 21 March 2009
New Team member
As I said before, one team member has dropped out, but we have found another, Amaury, a second year chemical engineer! I know him personally and he's a great guy, can't wait to get him up to speed and involved.
Friday, 20 March 2009
A setback
Unfortunately, due to an offer of internship, Matt has had to drop out of the team. He is also giving up his holiday in Turkey, but a second year internship is very rare this year and we all totally understand and accept his choice. We are currently deciding what to do about this, because it leaves only four male members in the team, including Richard, who will not be based at one of the sites.
Although that means that there will be at least one male member at each site, it leaves less flexibility with members, especially if one falls ill. It would also lead to a team of two at one site, a guy and a girl, which would no doubt lead to assumptions of marriage! Once we have decided what to do about this, I will write back on here...
In other news, the IC Trust has decided to donate £1050 to the project, £150 per Imperial student. Thank you IC trust!
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
First post - the situation so far!
Hi guys! Nice to see you've found the blog.
Right, first I should probably give a bit of information and history about this project. We are planning to fund and help to build three 46 000 litre ferro-cement tanks to collect water from roofs in rural communities of the Kahama district, Tabora region of Tanzania. When I say we, that's the UK team, 10 students from London universities who met through Engineers Without Borders. We plan to go out to Tanzania for our own sakes, to learn and have a good time, but also to assist in their construction. It would go ahead without us going out, but it gives us the motivation to raise the £10 000 needed to build them. We have raised this money (see below) but have a raise our personal costs, too.
The constructions will be project managed and made by the Diocesean Development Department of Tabora, but they don't have the money to pay for their construction, so that's where we come in - we are the main fundraisers for this project. Once we get out there, we plan to help with:
Right, first I should probably give a bit of information and history about this project. We are planning to fund and help to build three 46 000 litre ferro-cement tanks to collect water from roofs in rural communities of the Kahama district, Tabora region of Tanzania. When I say we, that's the UK team, 10 students from London universities who met through Engineers Without Borders. We plan to go out to Tanzania for our own sakes, to learn and have a good time, but also to assist in their construction. It would go ahead without us going out, but it gives us the motivation to raise the £10 000 needed to build them. We have raised this money (see below) but have a raise our personal costs, too.
The constructions will be project managed and made by the Diocesean Development Department of Tabora, but they don't have the money to pay for their construction, so that's where we come in - we are the main fundraisers for this project. Once we get out there, we plan to help with:
- the construction of the systems themselves
- the training of the local 'animators' who will understand the system and how to maintain it
- the training of local people in both general and rainwater tank hygiene
We plan to be out there for 6-8 weeks; we are currently deciding on dates for flights. Just a note - we are not going out there in any religious capacity, we are just working with the Development branch of the diocese as an NGO.
We have just about raised the £10k needed for the construction, so we are concentrating on raising money for personal costs now.
One way you can help us is totally free to you - use EasyFundraising and buy stuff through here! You can still use all of your favourite sites such as Amazon in exactly the same way, just follow the link from the EasyFundraising site and we get a percentage of the money you spend. This doesn't raise costs for you - the sites give the money out of their own profits!
We are also planning some sponsored events, and details of these will be put up here soon!
Of course, you can always make a donation to either our personal expenses or the construction of the systems - the money is kept separate. Just get in touch with one of us!
We are building a small RWH system for the environmental society here at Imperial so that they can collect rainwater with which to water their plants and frogs (they have a hole in their pond lining). So far we've built the cement jars that will hold the water - photos are on facebook if you want a look!
If you're interested in international development, and are at university, Engineers Without Borders have several branches across the UK's campuses - I'd definitely recommend having a look! You don't have to be an engineer to join, either, we welcome all sorts.
I'll try and keep this blog updated, so that you can see what we're doing, and what we plan to do. I might even get some interviews to put on!
TTFN,
Tom
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