Two ISU students and a professor went to Uganda during Spring Break to use their engineering skills for a good cause.

Tom Bruton, senior in civil engineering; Danielle Wain, graduate student in civil, construction and environmental engineering; and Say Ong, associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, went to Makerere University in Uganda during Spring Break to help solve water and construction problems.

The ISU council on international programs and the John Deere Foundation sent the three people to Uganda, where the Sustainable Rural Livelihood program already has connections.

Bruton, Wain and Ong are all part of Engineers for a Sustainable World, an organization that has a partnership with livelihood program. The three chose to go to Uganda because the program already has connections there.

“Our goal is to engage students from everywhere, not just engineers, and to work on projects in developing countries and get rid of world poverty,” Bruton said.

For 10 days, Bruton, Wain and Ong traveled to Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and collaborated with Makerere University faculty and students. They then traveled to Kamuli, a Ugandan district, and talked to farmers who were being helped by Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns, a non-governmental organization. VEDCO teaches farmers agriculture techniques, how to save water and channel it to their gardens and some sanitation techniques.

“Those farmers go out to train the other farmers, and eventually the whole place gradually improves their standard of living,” Bruton said.

The students also helped the people of Uganda with some simple construction problems.

“A lot of the problems they face over there are really low-tech, like how to get water from the roof when it comes down,” Bruton said. “Something easy we can do to make a change.”

Lack of water is a problem in Uganda, but Wain is familiar with dealing with dry areas. She worked in the Peace Corps and lived in the Dominican Republic for two years and said she saw a lot of similarities between the two countries.

“On the surface, it wasn’t very different,” Wain said. “The rural people [in Uganda] live very similar lives to the rural people there [the Dominican Republic], so I was sort of used to that level of poverty, that lack of things that we take for granted, water and electricity.”

Ong said he wants to bring knowledge of these problems back to Iowa State. He plans to use some of the problems he saw in Uganda in a new engineering class to be offered this fall. Engineers for a Sustainable World also plans on examining these issues, he said.

Wain said she thought the trip was important because there is room for people with engineering skills to contribute their time if they are willing to do so.

“It is great that we can collaborate and maybe improve on some of the stuff that they’re doing or help them bring what they are doing to another level,” Wain said. “There’s just so many people who are living in conditions that we can’t even comprehend in the United States, and if you can do something to make someone’s life easier, I think that’s great.”