We had a wonderful post-assessment trip meeting last night. The team spoke in great detail about the days spent in Sierra Leone. An interesting addition to the talk was the presentation of a hand-made helicopter made by a 12 year old Centennial School student. The engineering skills that went into this small scale replica were amazing!

The original project request was for our EWB chapter to partner with CSS to restore infrastructure that had started to fail prior to the war and was further damaged during the war. This includes the water and sanitation systems, electrical systems and the structural integrity of the buildings. All of this is geared toward the goal of restoring the school to the excellent academic standards that it had previously met; the team did not find problems on the assessment trip that would clearly prevent the program from moving forward in this direction.

Our next meeting will be this Thursday if you are interested in becoming part of our project team committee. Please contact Diana Dunn for more information.(dunnds@airproducts.com).

Assessment Trip News!!

The purpose of the recently completed assessment trip was to obtain firsthand information that would allow the chapter to begin a successful program at the Centennial Secondary School. Extensive data was collected regarding current water, sanitation, and power facilities, along with many observations about cultural expectations, practices, and preferences.
The travel team of four EWB-LVP members and one CeOSA liaison flew into Lungi International Airport, arriving late evening on January 22nd. They were picked up by the second CeOSA liaison with a rental vehicle. All six travelers stayed at a hotel in Lungi that night. On the 23rd, the team drove from Lungi, through Port Loko, to Bo, then continued on to Mattru, arriving in the early evening. The team stayed at a guesthouse in Mattru from January 23rd through January 30th. During this week, the team spent long days at CSS conducting meetings and interviews with school administration, staff and students. They also carried out extensive water testing, a survey of the buildings and structures, and an elevation survey of water sources. The team visited and interviewed numerous members of the local community as well, including community leaders, health professionals, and NGO workers. On January 30th , the team returned to Bo, where they investigated potential sources of building materials, met with a local Rotary chapter, and met with a Bo subset of CeOSA. On January 31st, the team continued on to the capital city of Freetown, where they stayed until departure on February 2nd. In Freetown, the team looked for additional construction materials sources, identified other resources needed for future trips, and met with additional CeOSA members, an EWB-Sierra Leone leader, and a United Nations program representative. On the day of departure, they traveled from Freetown to the Lungi airport via a new water taxi service.
Come to our meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 424 Center Street, Bethlehem, PA on March 16th, 2010 to find out more about our trip!