by Winn Mete

Created on: March 31, 2010   Last Updated: April 01, 2010

WATER FOR RHEMA GRACE

The 55 or so children of the Rhema Grace orphanage in Tiko, Cameroon don’t know about World Water Day.  What these children do know is a life spent hauling fetid water used for bathing, cooking and sometimes drinking from a contaminated stream.  They range in age from infants to teens.  They know that sickness is more than a part of life; it is a way of a life for those trapped in the endless cycle of poverty, disease, ignorance and corruption.  At the same time, they are the future hope of their nation—if they can somehow manage to survive childhood.

Depending on the statistics you read, about one in four children in emerging nations will die before age five from the simple and imperative lack of clean water—an irony to the nth degree given that H2O covers more than 70 percent of the surface of our planet. 

Robert Champion had never heard of World Water Day either, but his life’s work will entail designs to help insure that people don’t die from a lack of it.  And right now the immediate goal of the young engineering student, his classmates and their mentors is to improve the lives of a small group of homeless children and about 15 caretakers by providing access to liquid more precious than gold. 

Champion is president of the University of Alaska, Anchorage chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA.  The student chapter of Engineers Without Borders states that their mission “is to develop and implement sustainable engineering projects in disadvantaged communities, and improve their quality of life through environmentally and economically sustainable engineering solutions.  In the process, students gain world experience in Project Management, Diplomacy and Resource Management.”

They are young people charged with saving a world seemingly beyond salvation.  But what the students and teachers of UAA can—and will do—is improve the lives of one small group of homeless children on the other side of the globe.

Only a handful of people from UAA have been to Cameroon on Africa’s western coast.  Even so, Champion says that his class feels a connection with the residents of the Rhema Grace orphanage.  For the engineering students, this is an expensive project to implement. 

Funding for travel, lodging and materials is largely raised by EWB students and from a partnership with Rotary International and several other NGOs.

Student

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