Mae Wan, Thailand
Background
Mae Wan is located in Northern Thailand and consists of 11 villages with a population of 5,517. The climate consists of two seasons: wet (May-October) and dry (November-April). During the dry season rainfall drops to 0.2 inches per month, while in the wet season rainfall can be as high as 9.4 inches. Due to this drastic difference in precipitation, the villages of Mae Wan are only able to grow one crop per year. This forces members of the community to leave for part of the year in search of jobs, increasing the level of stress on the Mae Wan villages and family units.
The Need
Through the efforts of our partnering Non-Governmental Organization, Warm Heart Worldwide, the villages of Mae Wan have undergone proactive health, economic and educational reforms. The outstanding need is for engineering support to provide water storage infrastructure to allow two growing seasons per year. This would provide the additional economic development potential to allow the community to truly flourish.
Moving Forward
As a growing organization, EWB-Aloha is still calling for volunteers to provide a greater depth and breadth of our collective skillset.
Current chapter activities are focused on fundraising to generate the necessary means to send one or more teams to Mae Wan to conduct thorough and effective site assessments. This is a critical step in the Engineers Without Borders methodology as it provides the framework for long term relations with our adopted community of Mae Wan. We are planning to do two site assessments, one in the dry season and one in the wet, to understand the conditions year-round.
After collecting essential data in the field, our team will use their professional expertise to design and evaluate a number of solutions to offer to the community of Mae Wan. EWB-Aloha will then implement the technology chosen by the community, and return periodically over the next 5 years to monitor its effectiveness.
*Budget does not include construction or material costs