Read about the team’s Summer 2011 Travels here:
http://ewbusacumoroccosummer2011.wordpress.com/

Engineers Without Borders-USA has just recognized a team of students to begin work in Morocco, giving the EWB-USA-Columbia University chapter its third program. This is the first EWB-USA program in Morocco. In December 2010, Nina Morency-Brassard, a Columbia alumna and Peace Corps volunteer, reached out to EWB-USA-CU with a collaborative
project proposal. Residents of Ait Bayoud, a small rural community in the southern region of Morocco, expressed certain needs to Nina who is working in the area. The most pressing disruption to their quality of life is due to a river that floods during the rainy season. For three months a community of dwars, small villages, of nearly five-thousand
is severed by the raging river. Villagers are left without ready access to fresh food, medicine, health care, and education. In
addition commerce and basic communication is interrupted during this extended period. Students within EWB-USA-CU began to discuss the viability of footbridge.

Over the past semester, the Morocco program has gather together support from both professionals and professors. Three
professional structural engineers, Brian McCaffrey, Marcus Schodorf, and Ryan Woodward, have joined the Morocco program, each bringing at least 8 years of technical experience in bridge analysis and construction. The main academic guidance comes from Professor Rene Testa, of the Civil Engineering Department,. In July 2011, five members of the team will fly to Morocco for the first assessment trip. The first trip is of upmost importance for its social implications. The team must facilitate, in two weeks across cultural and language barriers, a relationship with the community and its leaders. In addition to surveying possible bridge sites and taking topological data, soil samples, and water data, the travel team will simultaneously be forming relationships with the local villagers and the Association du Développement d’Ait Bayoud, the
community body overseeing development in the village.

The Morocco team will spend at least five years in the region. Later this year, the program plans to send a second assessment team to observe the river during the flooding season. With the combined support of faculty, professionals, and the national chapter, the team is wildly excited to begin work to increase the quality of life in Ait Bayoud.

Meetings: Monday, 9:30 pm 633 Mudd

Program Co-Managers: Derek Huang, dbh2115@columbia.edu, Kevin Ma kkm2124@columbia.edu

Program Liaison: Andrew Sumner, ajs2236@gmail.com