EWB-UMN in Ghana: Clean Water for the Minnesota Academy
Background
 EWB-UMN has been working with the African Resources Center (ARC) since April of 2006 to develop a plan to address water and sanitation needs of the Minnesota Academy in Ghana, a grade school that provides education for over 1,000 rural Ghanians. The Minnesota Academy is located in the Agona-Swedru region, an area of Ghana in desperate need of rural schools. Since the construction of the initial school building in 2004, the Minnesota Academy has been teaching children in these areas basic skills such as reading, writing, math, history, and health, while also providing a state-certified education necessary for entrance into high school for students up to grade 8. However, as enrollment at the school has soared, water and sanitation problems have been magnified. The lack of a reliable water source nearby forces students to either drink from contaminated surface water, which leads to intestinal diseases, or to walk a mile to get water from the nearest clean source, disrupting their school day. Rudimentary pit toilets on the school property are highly unsanitary, leaching human waste into nearby water sources, and do not provide a sustainable and healthy waste disposal system. These problems threaten to reverse positive trends in enrollment and attendance at the Minnesota Academy.
 In July of 2006, EWB-UMN members traveled to Ghana with a professional engineering mentor, Walter Eshenaur, a water resources engineer with 13-years of experience in drinking water supply construction through UNICEF and other agencies in Somalia and Ethiopia, to conduct a site assessment of the Minnesota Academy. The objective of the site assessment was to gather independent water quality and site data. This consisted of testing water sources used by people in the surrounding areas, a detailed site survey using a total station and GPS, and extensive information-gathering meetings with Ghanians ranging from local day-laborers to chiefs and decision makers in the immediate and surrounding communities.
 Data from the site assessment was used to develop a Capstone Design project for students in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota under the mentorship of Walter Eshenaur. The objectives of this project are to implement thoroughly researched designs for locally sustainable solutions to water and sanitation problems at the Minnesota Academy, and provide a unique and challenging design experience for students interested in engineering in developing nations.
Current Status
 Five students in the Capstone Design class worked on designs with Mr. Eshenaur since September of 2006. Their designs consist of a bore-hole fitted with an AC/DC pump, converter, power source and simple distribution system, and a solid and human waste disposable system. EWB-UMN will be implementing these designs at the Minnesota Academy in Ghana in July of 2007, under the guidance of their professional mentor. EWB-UMN’s long-term goal is to continue to provide this Capstone Design experience for students at the University of Minnesota, and maintain our commitment to the development of a sustainable water and sanitation system for the Minnesota Academy.
The Need for Clean Water
 Currently, students at the Minnesota Academy are exposed to potentially fatal water-borne diseases such as Guinea Worm (Dracunculiasis). Water-borne diseases reinforce the cycle of poverty by preventing infected students from attending school, and obtaining an education. Please read more about this life-changing disease, and remember that it is completely preventable with proper sanitation.
"Nine out of ten people living in the depressed areas of Africa south of the Sahara still have nothing else to drink but meagre quantities of impure water, thus exposing themselves to serious diseases such as the appalling dracunculiasis. This parasitic disease causes dreadful suffering and disability among the world's most deprived people. The disease reappears each year during the agricultural season, handicapping farmers, mothers and schoolchildren already weighed down by harsh living conditions and often existing just above survival level. Families affected by the disease experience great loss: their food stocks and savings gradually dwindle away, they are no longer able to participate in vaccination campaigns and the children's schooling increasingly suffers. Gradually worn down by penury, these underprivileged people find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and disease."
--World Health Organization
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