Engineering for change is an organization whose mission is to foster the development of effective and impactful solutions that contribute to public health and safety worldwide. At the beginning of this year, this organization launched the Innovate for Impact challenge, in the search for technological solutions that contribute to the Sustainable Development Objectives of Zero Hunger (ODS 2) and Clean Water and Sanitation (ODS 6).
The challenge began on March 4, 2020, having three phases where the participants presented their proposals, which had to concentrate on human centered technological designs.
For the Clean Water and Sanitation track, around 100 proposals from approximately 40 countries were presented, and after three elimination phases, the team formed by the engineers: Mónica Gutiérrez, Manuel Mejía and Aliex Trujillo (Central University in Colombia); together with John Aguilar (National University of Colombia) and Sebastián Rodríguez (Agrarian University Foundation of Colombia) was the winner.
The solution was developed with the Parenskat community in La Guajira (Colombia), that is part of the Wayuú indigenous groups in the northern cost of Colombia, and lack of safe water supply for their families.
The proposed solution, called Apü üya Wüin (the guardian of the water, in Wayuunaiki, the language of the community), consists of the development of two main aspects: the design of the technology and an educational strategy to be implemented together with the community.
The technology consists of a passive type desalinator that uses solar energy to separate chlorides from water by evaporation. On the other hand, the educational strategy, which was the differentiating factor of the proposal, consists of actively involving the community in all stages of the project, in order to increase the possibilities of a sustainable project in time.
The main objective is that the community appropriates the technology by understanding the constructive characteristics of the device and its operating principles.
Thus, the community could build the device without depending on an external entity, since the components can be obtained in material supply stores in the nearest urban area. The idea was to make the device accessible to the community and easily replicable, not only among the families of Parenskat, but also in other communities in Colombia and the world, with similar conditions.
Authors
Mónica Andrea Gutiérrez (PPRE 2015-2017), Aliex Trujillo and Manuel Mejía - Teachers and researchers of the Department of Mechanical Engineering Department at Universidad Central in Bogotá, Colombia.
Jhonn Aguilar Ariza - External consultant
Sebastian Rodriguez - Teacher Agrarian University Foundation of Colombia
Contact: Mónica Andrea Gutierrez Almonacid <moniangual@gmail.com>
related video: www.youtube.com/watch;