A team of students, faculty and local professionals from Engineers Without Borders at WSU is working with the nonprofit Student Movement for Real Change to help bring clean water to people in Kenya.

The groups are collaborating to design a 9-mile-long pipeline to provide fresh, clean water to 35,000 people in Kenya, according to the EWB Web site.

“This is one of the first, major international projects we are involved in,” said Alex McDonald, founder and president of WSU’s EWB.

The project is based in the southeast region of Kenya near Kayafungo, an impoverished area of the country. The lack of clean, potable water is a serious problem in this region. Women and children walk up to 6 miles to collect water from pits that fill with rain, according to the site.

The team will make its first trip to Kenya at the end of May. Later phases will involve designing and constructing the pipeline. The project will help reduce the distance of walking to a water source to less than a mile. It should provide water to 10 schools and result in a reduction of waterborne diseases. It will also provide employment in the region, according to the site.

This project is divided into three phases. The initial phase will be done by a team of three students – McDonald, Carrie Schramm and Zakaria Mohamed – with the help of J. Daniel Dolan, a WSU civil and environmental engineering professor.

“We will determine what exactly has to be done to clean water, and using GPS system [we will] map the 9-mile-long site” Schramm said of this summer’s stage.

Data collection is essential because there is no topographic map available in Kenya, she said.

But the trip would not be possible without funding.

“We are still raising funds. SMRC is helping us with an amount of $300,000 for construction,” McDonald said. “We have $25,000 contribution from various Kenyan authorities.” Donations to EWB are managed by WSU Foundation, which maintains a tax-exempt status. The team has contacts with University of Nairobi and is also scheduled for a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kenya. Support for the project also came from students here, he said.

“ASWSU is supporting us with a fund of $750,” he said.

SMRC is a national nonprofit organization that helps build projects such as this one in various parts of the world.

EWB is hoping to get additional money from WSU and students.

“We are a nonprofit body,” McDonald said. “We hope to get some help.”