Current Progress and Past Trips

The Texas Tech Chapter of Engineers Without Borders has taken two assessment trips to Solong, Panama; which is located in northwestern Panama. Solong is home to a community of approximately 300 people, most of them being direct descendants of the Naso tribe. The community currently does not have most of the amenities that we consider to be necessities, including clean running water and power.

This project’s goal is to provide clean, reliable water and a sanitation system for the people of Solong. This mission will include filtering and distributing the water they currently drink and creating a sanitation system for their waste to prevent cross contamination between the waste and their water source. This is necessary due to the health problems that Solong currently faces; diseases that are rampant throughout the area, including blue baby syndrome, meningitis, and HUS. The water sanitation is also necessary to prevent pollution of the environment with which the people of Solong live.

First Assessment Trip Description

In Solong, the first travel team began their research by hiking to the water tank and the water source for the village of Solong. Here the team took some water samples for testing for bacteria.

The travel team also had a town meeting with the people of Solong. About thirty people showed up to take part in the meeting. The team discussed what it was trying to do in Solong and what it would be doing for the next few days.

Over the course of a few days the team continued to conduct more water testing, health assessments, and detailed discussions with various people in the village concerning both the project and the community as a whole. A GPS device was used for a rough survey of the land and pictures were taken of the infrastructure of the village.

After leaving Solong the travel team met with the ministry of health in Panama City to discuss EWB’s involvement with Solong. The team also spent some time looking for other places to stay and better ways to get around Panama.

Second Assessment Trip Description

The objectives for our chapter’s second assessment trip were to further familiarize ourselves with the travel procedures in Panama, find where we can acquire supplies for the implementation of our system, attain all final approval from Panama’s Ministry of Health, meet with the people of Solong to discuss the preliminary designs that our project team has come up with, discuss other design needs and ideas that the people of Solong would like to see implemented, and to take a more detailed land survey so that our design groups have the most accurate information possible.

The travel also distributed a water consumption survey to 15 different households within Solong that would be filled out over a two week period. This information will be used to estimate the total amount of water needed by the entire community and will also be compared with other published data concerning water consumption. Quantitative information regarding the low-flow flow rates within Solong’s water collection tank was also taken.