It’s been a couple millennia since anyone turned water into wine. But this week the Portland chapter of Engineers Without Borders set out to do the reverse.
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About 200 people enjoyed the first Beer + Wine = Water fundraiser at the Ocean Gateway in Portland Thursday night, benefiting the group’s work to bring safe drinking water to an agricultural village in Dorgobom, Ghana.
The atmosphere was festive — with the Jason Spooner Band complementing hors d’oeuvres from local caterers and Maine-made beer, wines and meads. In short, it was a world away from Dorgobom.
Established just two years ago, Engineers Without Borders Portland is already planning its third trip to Ghana. Five engineering-minded volunteers go each year, with first-year volunteers giving not only their time and expertise but their airfare. All proceeds from the fundraiser go toward the March 2013 trip, for water tanks, pumps, plumbing, electrical equipment, tools and some compensation for local skilled workers.
The connection between the Portland organization and Dorgobom village was originally forged by Shanta Keller, a bridge engineer with T.Y. Lin International in Falmouth, who studied with a professor from Ghana. While Keller was traveling to Africa for a wedding, he met with the Community Directed Development Foundation in Ghana to find out what needs might be met by a group of civic-minded engineers and scientists.
“Their biggest struggle is just getting clean water,” Keller said.
In Dorgobom, women and girls were spending five to eight hours a day lugging water from a contaminated pond — the village’s only water supply.
“It’s the color of a cafe latte,” says Nadia Glucksberg, a hydrogeologist from engineering firm Haley & Aldrich and the president of Engineers Without Borders Portland. “They know it’s not safe, but they also know they have no options.”
On a second trip to Ghana, engineering volunteers from Maine began installing a rainwater collection system on the roof of the village elementary school.
“After we put in the first phase of the rainwater collection system and it started to rain, and they saw what this would mean to them, the village was really excited about what we were doing,” said Scott Winchester, sole proprietor of Winchester Mechanical of Portland. “We show up with resources and ideas, and they pitch in with hard work and a commitment to maintaining the new systems.”
Last March, villagers enthusiastically worked with the Maine volunteers to expand the rainwater collection system. Now the village can collect enough to meet its daily drinking-water needs during the rainy season.
“As a result of the improved water supply, everyone in the village is healthier, and the children are able to go to school regularly and stay in school longer,” Glucksberg said.
During the three or four dry months each year, women and girls have to wade back into the pond to collect water. That source is infected with parasitic flatworms that enter the bloodstream through the women’s feet. Then there are the back and neck issues resulting from carrying 5- to 8-gallon pots of water on their heads day after day.
In March 2013 another team of volunteers will go to Ghana to focus on collecting, filtering and treating the pond — the only available source of water during the drier months.
Maine schoolchildren also benefit from Engineers Without Borders’ work in Ghana. For the past two years, Glucksberg has visited Lyman Moore Middle School in Portland to talk about the project.
“It’s an amazing real-world example, and it’s global,” said sixth-grade teacher Julie Myers, explaining how the water project dovetails with what students are learning in math, science, language arts and social studies.
Nearly a quarter of the sixth-grade students at Lyman Moore come from various regions of Africa.
“They just light up when we talk about Ghana,” Myers said.
Engineers Without Borders Portland volunteers in Ghana have come from local engineering firms AMEC, ARCADIS, Gorrill-Palmer Consulting Engineers, Haley & Aldrich, HDR, Power Engineers, T.Y. Lin International and Woodard & Curran.
Fundraising support is strong among the 40 members of Engineers Without Borders Portland and the firms that employ them. Haley & Aldrich is matching employee contributions to the Dorgobom project. AMEC will match the net profits from Beer + Wine = Water.
“We want this to become an annual signature event,” said Kathy Kern, a civil engineer from T.Y. International and one of the founding members of Engineers Without Borders Portland. “It helps with the awareness of what we’re doing.”
Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer based in Scarborough. She can be reached at amyedits@aol.com.
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