Engineers Without Borders - Wichita State University

Engineers Without Borders is a national organization that allows different university chapters to participate in humanitarian engineering projects for underprivileged communities. Universities are sent all over the world including Central America, South America, Southeast Asia and Africa. The national organization does engineering projects ranging from water supply, water purification, sanitation projects, and designing and constructing buildings. EWB gives local college students the ability to be a part of a global project in different cultural areas of the world. Our project is a computer lab for a community in Wakiso District, Uganda. Wichita State University students, faculty advisers, and our mentor team from the Nebraska Professional Chapter of EWB are currently working on a design and education plan to implement this project at St. Kizito Primary School in Makenke, Uganda. This institution serves over 300 students, ages ranging from 4 to 12 years old. The school currently has 7 rooms on its compound, including housing for the staff. Food is cooked outdoors and students eat posho, a corn flour porridge, in their respective classrooms every day for lunch. There is a courtyard between all the buildings where children take their recesses before returning to their studies. The engineering plan is to design a lab to be housed in an existing structure, and design electrical infrastructure to support its operation. Our job is to provide the design, funds, and education necessary for the community to learn, understand and implement the engineering process. Not only are we building a computer lab; we are training and educating the students and community members on how to maintain the lab, use computers, and traverse the vast wealth of knowledge that is the internet for themselves. The ultimate goal of this project is to allow the community members of Makenke the resources to grow in this modern technological age where knowledge of computers and access to the internet is vital for advancement. The community of Makenke will be empowered by the vast wealth of information and opportunity for growth gained by the addition of a computer lab. "Megabytes for Makenke, Every Bit Counts!"

Donations contribute to "Megabytes for Makenke!" a WSU-EWB project effort to provide St. Kizito Primary School of Makenke, Uganda with the area's first computer lab! Donate here: https://takeaction.ewb-usa.org/wichita-state-university-chapter