Dr. Janey Camp Interviewed by Vanderbilt Husler for her work with Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in Guatemala
Excerpt from Vanderbilt Hustler
From the Tristar State to the Land of the Eternal Spring: Vanderbilt and Guatemala by Alexa Bussman
ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS
Dr. Janey Camp is the Student Chapter Advisor for Engineers Without Borders (EWB) at Vanderbilt. On Jan. 1 of this year, Camp took three EWB students to Guatemala for a five-day assessment trip. Communities in need of engineering services can submit projects to EWB, and then chapters apply to take on the project. The group of Vanderbilt EWB students visited two schools in Txemuj and Paxoj, focusing on community needs and local impact projects. Camp said that depending on scheduling and fundraising, another trip could take place this upcoming summer.
I hoped that they would gain an appreciation for life in a third world country and the needs of the people there
“I think the biggest challenge was leaving and knowing how much work we have to do,” Camp said.
Camp emphasized the hospitality and gratitude the EWB group received from the community. The principal of one of the schools welcomed them into his home, introducing them to his family and insisting they stay there for the night. Ultimately, making human connections was an integral part of the trip, and one that Camp wanted her students to take with them.
“I hoped that they would gain an appreciation for life in a third world country and the needs of the people there,” Camp said.
At the end of last spring, there was a push to explore options for an international service trip, as EWB was not currently working on one. Hunter Conti, Noah Gertler, and Jared Rothstein are the three Vanderbilt undergraduate students who participated in the EWB assessment trip to Guatemala. Once in Guatemala, the students worked with community leaders and saw firsthand the challenges of implementing certain solutions.
“There are certain solutions that we’d like to implement that make the most sense, technically speaking on paper, but whether it’s money that we don’t have or it’s labor that we don’t have or it’s time that we don’t have to be there,” Gertler said.
While on the service trip,the students worked throughout the day and collected data, figuring out what the data meant for the area and how they could find solutions to the community’s problems. All three students said that getting to know the people in Guatemala was one of the most impactful aspects of the trip.
“Having that experience where you feel what it means to be a human there, it really just gives you this bigger, more loving, compassionate, holistic view of the world,” Gertler said.
EWB will continue to design solutions throughout the semester to address the priorities of the communities that they worked in. Conti said the projects at the forefront of their design are a septic system, a retaining wall and improvements to a school entrance. One of the unique aspects of the EWB trip is the improvements that can be continually utilized throughout the community.
“It’s not meant to just help them; it’s also meant to teach them and show them the right ways to do things and how to build certain things,” Rothstein said. “It’s kind of cool because you’re helping, and when you leave you know you’re still directly impacting them because they’re going to be able to further improve on the community.”
One of the challenges with future trips to follow up the assessment will be fundraising. Rothstein said that EWB will be holding fundraisers this semester in order to raise the necessary amount for designing solutions and taking implementation trips with more members.
“We have to raise a good amount of money for the construction, but we’re also trying to grow the club a lot and be as big as some other big international service clubs on campus,” Rothstein said.
Read the entire article From the Tristar State to the Land of the Eternal Spring: Vanderbilt and Guatemala by Alexa Bussman featuring Vanderbilt’s work in Guatemala.