Dr. Jim Chamberlin, professor and faculty member in the Department of Engineering, helped coordinate and oversee two different community engagement efforts in Africa with University of Oklahoma students this past summer. OU students had the opportunity to work either in Ethiopia or Uganda alongside community members on projects selected by the respective communities.
Though the trip to Uganda is open to any major, students have mainly attended through the College of Engineering, College of Education, Price Business College, and the Department of Regional and City Planning. These four groups, though together on the trip, used the skills they have learned in the classroom to work collaboratively with the local communities on different projects. A total of 12-20 students are selected to attend, and of these, 5-7 were engineering students.
In Uganda, among other projects the engineering students worked on, they also had the opportunity to work with an orphanage of about 400 children on installing solar panels in the maternity ward.
"At this particular orphanage, babies are born at a rate of about 6-8 per week so it was critical they had electricity, " Chamberlain said.
Each year the projects vary in Uganda depending on what the local community requests. Students receive up to six credit hours and are responsible for keeping a journal and a final paper.
This past summer was the first year the trip to Ethiopia was offered.
"We were approached to work with a group called Splash, whose CEO, Erick Stowe, had just won our Water Prize last year, " said Chamberlain. "They wanted our help collecting water data from 150 schools."
This trip, however, was different from the Uganda trip in that it was purely service-learning. The nine students who went, for the most part, paid their own way and did not receive credit for the trip.
To collect data for Splash, students used a specially designed app to record interviews and information about the conditions of water at each school. Along with interviews, OU students walked to each latrine and each water point to assess the condition of them. This information was stored in the app. At the end of each day, the group would download the data to Splash website.
"It took a few days for the students to learn how to use the software which was a big part of their learning process - how to best use the app and use the data," Chamberlain said.
The information from this trip is going to be used by Splash to help create better resources for the communities her in Ethiopia.
Chamberlain discussed that the students left Uganda and Ethiopia with an understanding of how important service learning skills are to the engineering field.
"Until we have the basic necessities, which engineering can provide and help preserve, we can't have any other conversations. Ensuring access to clean drinking water will always be one of the first steps in service-learning," Chamberlain said.
