Secondary school Engineering Students at John Burroughs School St. Louis use Fluidit Water to make hydraulic model of Nicaraguan village of La Fortuna.
In late July we were contacted by Martha Keeley, a science teacher at John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri. She enquired that could they use Fluidit Water for a humanitarian school project they were having in autumn 2021. The project would be conducted through Global Brigades charity program and with the supervision of Julio Granados, the local manager in Nicaragua for Global Brigades. We thought that the project aligns well with our values, so we wanted to provide Martha, Julio and the students access to our software for the time of the project.
“La Fortuna’s female community members currently spend hours each day walking long distances to collect water in buckets for their families’ drinking and cooking needs. The water source from which they collect water is also used for bathing and for washing clothes.” Martha explains the importance of the project. Her class would design a new water supply system with water tanks and pumps, to provide water to the households of La Fortuna.
“The new system will allow the water from a cleaner spring source to be purified as needed and pumped to a storage tank high in the mountains nearby. From the storage tank, water will flow by gravity to the 37 homes in the community.” Martha continues to explain the design of the system.
“The students applied their new knowledge of fluid mechanics under the guidance of collaborating engineers at Squads Abroad, using the software to fully model the system and optimize the design. The design provides water at the necessary flowrate and pressures with the lowest cost and highest reliability.” Martha continues. The system would be overall 5 kilometers in length, It would have 1 pumping station, 1 tank at a high elevation point, 11 valves, and 37 household connections. The estimated labor to build the system was 1480 days from which a lot is manual labor. The overall estimated budget for building such a system at the village of La Fortuna Nicaragua is roughly 36 000 $.
“Squads Abroad, the engineering students and the community of La Fortuna are currently engaged in efforts to raise the necessary money to build the system. Squads Abroad is the high school division of Global Brigades, an international sustainable development agency.” Martha says how the expenses to build the system will be covered.
We at Fluidit were very happy to be able to participate in the La Fortuna water project implementation. We see that the project conducted by Martha and Julio is important for the following reasons:
- It allows access to better water for more people in the world
- It promotes gender equality, as the women of La Fortuna can use the time spent on carrying the water for other important activities
- It might spark the light of water engineering career for the young bright minds
The UN established sustainable development goals, or SDGs, in 2015. These goals are intended to be the “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. Building water infrastructure works towards the goals of sustainable development on the account of gender equality, clean water, sanitation, and partnerships.
Hopefully, we can provide our assistance in similar projects in the future.
If you are interested in participating in the fundraiser, more info here: La Fortuna Nicaragua Water Project Implementation Fundraiser.
For inquiries to use our software in your projects, please contact us here: https://fluidit.com/software/#contactform