[MUSIC]
MIKE SHOWAK: Welcome to Koidu.
We're here on our 2012
pre-assessment trip as part of
the Princeton Chapter of
Engineers Without Borders, the
Sierra Leone Project, looking
to find a project to do here
in Koidu town, in the Kono
district, eastern province of
Sierra Leone.
STEPH TEEPLE: Koidu is
a fairly large city.
It's the biggest in the
eastern province.
I've been told that about ninety
thousand to a hundred
thousand people live there.
But, unfortunately, all one
hundred thousand of those
people suffer lack of access to
paved roads, running water,
electricity.
There are no power lines.
Any source of electricity that
people contain comes from
generators or individual
solar installations.
MIKE SHOWAK: When we go to these
communities, we often
spend a number of hours just
sitting and observing.
You have to watch where people
are getting their water from,
where they're going to the
bathroom, and how they're
actually distributing
medical supplies.
As you're doing that people will
start to come up to you
and mention things that are
going on in their community.
And, by really trying to
interact with these people is
how you understand where their
needs are, where their
problems are, and what
is actually going
well in their community.
KATIE BREEN: We went to Wardu
this week, and we went there
with the same mission that
we went with the other
communities, going there to talk
to the people that live
there and interview with the
chief, and really get a sense
of what these people are
experiencing in their
day-to-day life, while
living in this place.
CHRISTINE FENG: Ultimately, we
chose Dorma as the community
to form a partnership with.
We determined that the most
pressing problems that
currently face the village are:
one, lack of a source of
clean water; two,lack of a
sanitation and latrine
facility; and, three, lack
of safe bridges on the
main road to town.
MIKE SHOWAK: Dorma only has one
functioning well, which is
dry for at least half the year,
sending residents to the
swamps nearby to gain water.
CHRISTINE FENG: One of the
main issues in Dorma that
we've identified are these
unsanitary latrines, which are
essentially shallow pits dug
within the ground, maybe about
ten meters from houses, with
palm fronds and various
lengths of cloth outside.
These pits contribute to a lot
of unsanitary practices and
increase the amount of illnesses
within the community
tremendously.
MIKE SHOWAK: One of the
potential problems in the
Dorma community are two
pipe bridges they
have over small creeks.
As you can see, these bridges
aren't really designed for
large scale transportation.
Cars have a tough time getting
across them, which impacts the
health clinic set on the other
side of the bridges, and
motorbikes, the primary form
of transportation, have a
really tough time as they
skid out on the pipes.
Locals try and put the mud back
frequently during the
rainy season, but it washes
away pretty quickly.
CHRISTINE FENG: Over the past
few days, we've been in talks
with the Dorma chief, and the
community of Dorma is very
excited partner with us to
form an EWB-USA project.