The Casablanca Project Initiatives
Casablanca, Peru is a remote village located in Ica River valley of southern Peru. This region provides much of the agriculture for the entire Peruvian country, and is populated and cultivated almost entirely by small villages whose subsistence farming lifestyle is based upon one main artery: the Ica River. This river flows through the base of the valley and provides the only source of water in this arid desert climate. The University of Miami has been involved in Casablanca for several years now—most intensely after earthquakes and subsequent landslides in 2007 devastated the region and left in their wakes a region in need of immense support—support that was not successfully filtrating through the Peruvian government.
In January of 2009, a group of students from the University of Miami chapter of Engineers Without Borders traveled to the region to work and live in this community of roughly 300 people. Calling this community a “village” is a euphemism for the actual reality that these people are enduring. Their homes are constructed from straw, there is no electricity, little food, no health care, and almost no attention from the local government—who claims that eventually through time, support will finally reach this village. But waiting is an unacceptable injustice to these people. The water they were drinking runs through numerous farmland and tested positive for pesticides, fertilizers, and dangerously high levels of fecal coliform. Children and adults have numerous health-related problems as a result of the lacking supply of clean water. In our time there, we worked with the community members to fix a broken piping system that was intended to bring clean drinking water to the village from miles upstream in the river. This system had never been functional, but with the support of the community, we were able to help repair the pipes and bring clean water to the village of Casablanca. This solution, however, is temporary, and though it may still be transporting clean water, it is a shoddy and ill-conceived design. We need to help create a permanent solution to bring clean water to this community, which involves (1) permanently replacing the sections of the pipeline that are sensitive to pressure bursts, (2) introducing an intake system that preliminarily filters the water and allows for a greater flow rate while preventing small rocks to enter the system, and (3) establishing community officials who are responsible for the maintenance of the water system.
In addition to drinking and bathing water, this community has a desperate need for aid in their irrigation system. As mentioned, this is a predominantly subsistence farming village, whereby most members are hardly able to survive by working 16 hour days in the field. Essentially, farming is life. The plots of land receive their irrigation from an open-aired channel that traverses several miles from the river upstream. In this arid climate, the channel is never guaranteed to be flowing, and what little runoff may flow will seep into the dry earth in the channel. Furthermore, the canal is constantly overgrown with weeds and plants that must be systematically cleared. Subsequently, every two weeks, the entire village is recruited to the canal where they must spend two full days clearing and re-dredging portions of the canal. This is a never-ending cycle in order to maintain a water supply to the farm land, but without flowing water, there is no possibility for the sustainability of life. We are proposing to line the canal with either concrete or a plastic membrane that will ensure proper water flow to the village as well as free the community from the consistent manual labor involved in clearing the canal.
Students will be traveling to Casablanca in December 2009 in order to begin the implementation of these water initiatives , including a 500 meter trial of lining materials for the canal in order to evaluate the most practical and efficient solution.
In January of 2009, a group of students from the University of Miami chapter of Engineers Without Borders traveled to the region to work and live in this community of roughly 300 people. Calling this community a “village” is a euphemism for the actual reality that these people are enduring. Their homes are constructed from straw, there is no electricity, little food, no health care, and almost no attention from the local government—who claims that eventually through time, support will finally reach this village. But waiting is an unacceptable injustice to these people. The water they were drinking runs through numerous farmland and tested positive for pesticides, fertilizers, and dangerously high levels of fecal coliform. Children and adults have numerous health-related problems as a result of the lacking supply of clean water. In our time there, we worked with the community members to fix a broken piping system that was intended to bring clean drinking water to the village from miles upstream in the river. This system had never been functional, but with the support of the community, we were able to help repair the pipes and bring clean water to the village of Casablanca. This solution, however, is temporary, and though it may still be transporting clean water, it is a shoddy and ill-conceived design. We need to help create a permanent solution to bring clean water to this community, which involves (1) permanently replacing the sections of the pipeline that are sensitive to pressure bursts, (2) introducing an intake system that preliminarily filters the water and allows for a greater flow rate while preventing small rocks to enter the system, and (3) establishing community officials who are responsible for the maintenance of the water system.
In addition to drinking and bathing water, this community has a desperate need for aid in their irrigation system. As mentioned, this is a predominantly subsistence farming village, whereby most members are hardly able to survive by working 16 hour days in the field. Essentially, farming is life. The plots of land receive their irrigation from an open-aired channel that traverses several miles from the river upstream. In this arid climate, the channel is never guaranteed to be flowing, and what little runoff may flow will seep into the dry earth in the channel. Furthermore, the canal is constantly overgrown with weeds and plants that must be systematically cleared. Subsequently, every two weeks, the entire village is recruited to the canal where they must spend two full days clearing and re-dredging portions of the canal. This is a never-ending cycle in order to maintain a water supply to the farm land, but without flowing water, there is no possibility for the sustainability of life. We are proposing to line the canal with either concrete or a plastic membrane that will ensure proper water flow to the village as well as free the community from the consistent manual labor involved in clearing the canal.
Students will be traveling to Casablanca in December 2009 in order to begin the implementation of these water initiatives , including a 500 meter trial of lining materials for the canal in order to evaluate the most practical and efficient solution.