Filters provide tribespeople with clean water

A group of UNM engineers spent two and a half weeks in Bolivia this summer working to provide an indigenous tribe with greater access to clean water.

Members of the University’s Engineers Without Borders chapter went to the Tsimane villages of Tacuaral and Campo Bello in June. Project leader Kelly Isaacson said finding a potable water source was the main priority.

“The main purpose of this specific trip was to meet with two communities in Bolivia and talk to them about what’s in their water and what that meant,” she said.

Students designed and built slow sand filters, which are used to remove disease-causing bacteria from the water. They also held water sanitation workshops to educate the Tsimane people about hygiene and how to maintain the water filters, Justin Jayne, a mentor for the program, said.

“We were able to demonstrate how to build these filters and hold workshops with the communities in which they were able to learn those skills,” he said. “We actually found that the communities were very receptive and interested in those topics.”

The Tsimane tribe populates the jungle part of Bolivia, specifically the Amazon lowlands. Andrew Schuler, another mentor in the group, said he was taken aback by how Tsimane people live.

“Even under primitive conditions, they were still making their houses nice and keeping them clean,” he said.

The partnership with the Tsimane people is an ongoing project.

Last summer, a different group went to Bolivia to assess the water situation. Jayne, who was not on last year’s trip, said while the assessment team provided good information, aspects of the trip still surprised him .

“It was very surprising to experience life without those amenities that we tend to take for granted.”

Another group will revisit the villages next summer to make sure the water filters are working, and Schuler said he hopes the filter solution will spread to other households and villages.

“A home run would be if they were building more of these filters when we went back and a lot of the other households had these filters in place and were operating them,” he said.