Student engineers join forces with Kenyan communities for clean water
A team of Arizona State University students poses with a scalable water filtration system they built for a secondary school in Naki, Kenya. The ASU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders, an international community service organization, contributed significantly to the project, along with another vital water infrastructure project in Kenya. Photo courtesy of Engineering Without Borders, ASU chapter
Driven by the belief that access to clean water and reliable infrastructure can transform lives, Engineers Without Borders USA tackles complex challenges in communities around the world.
In places frequently torn by economic strife and societal conflict, the international organization steadfastly pursues its mission to improve living conditions and create opportunities for people to thrive.
Through these efforts, a growing number of Arizona State University students are getting hands-on education in the technological, logistical, organizational and management skills needed to meet such challenges.
Among them are 22 members of the organization’s ASU student chapter who are helping the East African nation of Kenya provide clean water to the rural village of Naki by designing, testing and implementing a water filtration system, funded in part by donation from ASU’s Change the World initiative and an ASU Global Education Office Go Global grant awarded to the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
Over the past several semesters, successive groups of ASU students have contributed to the project in Kenya, a nation of more than 50 million people, each building on the work of the last. Last year, the ASU team helped restore a 20,000-gallon water tank, but after finding the water unsanitary, they developed a water filter using easily accessible materials like sand.
The team’s plans include implementing solar-powered well and rainwater catchment systems over the next two years to provide filtered water to as many as 2,000 people across three communities. A future well project will bring year-round access to clean water for more than 3,000 members of one community.
Eden Funk, a Fulton Schools mechanical engineering student in her senior year and co-vice president of the Engineers Without Borders ASU student chapter, is the team lead for the endeavor. She says many of the students involved are in the civil and mechanical engineering or computer science programs, while others come from a variety of other ASU degree programs beyond engineering, including physics.
Mounia Bazzi, a Fulton Schools electrical engineering undergraduate student, says the chapter expects to see more contributions from dozens of ASU students, faculty members and industry professionals in both current and future endeavors in Kenya.
Guidance from experienced mentors
About a dozen students are currently involved in the project, with more expected to join before its planned completion in Kenya next year, Bazzi says. She believes the next phase — developing solar energy systems and battery storage — will make a lasting difference for the community.
The batteries are part of the solar energy system for the water pump project. Additional components of the project the students plan to design and build include a bore hole and a rain catchment system.
Funk says the student-led team is getting valuable guidance from Jared Shoepf, a Fulton Schools associate teaching professor of engineering and director of ASU’s Engineering Projects in Community Service, the umbrella program through which the Engineers Without Borders Kenya team is working.
“He meets with us regularly to review designs, advise us in getting through project setbacks, and connect us with industry experts who expand our technical knowledge,” Funk says. “Having this steady mentorship has been essential in transforming our ideas into viable engineering solutions.”
The members of the ASU Engineers Without Borders chapter currently involved are among the 100-plus students working on similar projects in eight countries and many communities worldwide.
Since 2012, about 20 students each semester have contributed to the Kenya project, helping mostly with research prototyping of technologies and related systems. Teams have traveled to Kenya eight times in groups of about six or seven students.
Projects reveal fundamental purpose of engineering
Engineer Jack Moody, a water resources services leader with Westwood Professional Services in Phoenix, and Jason Reynolds, a project engineer with Jett Civil Engineering based in Scottsdale, Arizona, serve as mentors for the ASU Engineers Without Borders chapter and have been guiding the students on their work for the Kenya project.
“During our recent trip to Kenya this summer, it was made apparent just how much the students actually care about the community that we are providing with water infrastructure,” Reynolds says. “A few of the students made a point to start learning how to speak Swahili and were constantly chatting with the locals. I believe they really appreciated having conversations in their native tongue, and it helped to reinforce the point that these students genuinely care about these people and their communities.”
Moody points to the students’ exemplary work in helping construct a 70,000-liter, in-ground storage tank to collect water from rooftop runoff collection systems, repairing two earthen dams, and building a hydraulics laboratory at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology in Kenya.
“I enjoy working with countries that need help with water resources and other types of basic necessities, but I also just as much enjoy mentoring and working with these ASU students,” Moody says.
Funk says she has gained a perspective shared by other students involved in the project.
“Before my first trip to Kenya, the problems I worked on in my classes felt like abstract equations and drawings on a page,” she says. “Standing in a rural community and watching those calculations materialize into a functioning system that improved clean water access for thousands of people reframed everything I thought I knew. It revealed the true purpose behind engineering, demonstrating that every formula and every design has the power to improve lives.”
Community members in Kenya echo that sentiment, expressing appreciation for the students’ role in strengthening local infrastructure and access to essential resources.
“The collaboration between ASU’s Engineers Without Borders chapter and local communities in Kenya has demonstrated the profound impact of student-led engineering initiatives on global development,” says Noah Okidia, a community volunteer partner in Kenya. “As a volunteer working with the ASU team, I have witnessed firsthand how technical expertise, coupled with cultural exchange and community engagement, can generate lasting solutions. Despite our vastly different cultures, the ASU Engineers Without Borders team has always fit into our communities and carried out their planned projects.”
Funk and Bazzi say these pursuits not only expand students' engineering knowledge and problem-solving skills, but also give valuable experience in working with people from other cultures.
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