September 24, 2024 | Annette Saunders
Engineers Without Borders, a national organization that connects student engineers with building projects that are aimed at improving underserved societies, exemplifies what it means to go above and beyond with a service-learning project that meets community-identified needs.
Andrew Piepho, a junior studying Biomedical engineering at Purdue University, is a member of the Purdue student chapter of Engineers Without Borders. Through this organization, Piepho and his team members partner with engineering mentors to tackle humanitarian projects at a global scale. One of their current projects, the Rubona Water Project, was in part, made possible through the funding of a $1,500 service-learning grant from the Purdue Office of Service-Learning.
For the Rubona Water Project, the students of Engineers Without Borders are working alongside their mentors to develop a sustainable water purification and pipeline system that will distribute clean drinking water via taps throughout the Rwandan town. Previously, mostly women and children in the town had to make a thirty-minute journey up a nearby mountain to collect unclean drinking water, which creates a tremendous strain on the community.
Piepho is incredibly proud of the service-learning work that he does through Engineers Without Borders, and he feels exceptionally grateful that communities are willing to build relationships with his team and invest a great deal of their own time. Piepho sees the work that they do as mutually beneficial.
"We feel like we have as much or more to learn from these communities as they have from us.”
Working on a project that has a direct impact on a whole village of people is bound to come with some stressors, but Andrew finds his drive to overcome difficulties in service-learning when he takes time to notice small signs that his efforts matter, such as being able to see pictures of designs he has once created come to life, as well as directly perceiving the community’s gratitude while visiting Rubona. These key motivators help Andrew stay focused.
The next project that Engineers Without Borders will be pursuing is the Louisiana Project, which has also received funding via a Purdue service-learning grant. Through this project, the team will develop a hurricane-resistant community shelter for the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe.
Andrew emphasized that what he has learned to be the most important aspect of service-learning is “...for students to be able to interact with communities beyond [Purdue’s] own.” He also noted that service-learning programming is phenomenal at developing both communication and social skills.
Overall, Andrew finds service-learning to be a key tool for learning because, “It is great for [Purdue’s] students to be able to interact with communities beyond [their] own”
Service-learning grants are available to both undergraduate and graduate students from the Purdue West Lafayette and Indianapolis campuses and serve to aid service-learning and engagement projects. Grant amounts range from $100 - $500 for individual students and up to $1,500 for teams. For more information, visit the grant page on the Office of Service-Learning website.