Student-led, Community Driven Improvement of the Drinking Supply in a Rural Village in South Africa

This paper presents the extension of a sustainable water purification project conducted by engineering students from a university in South Africa and a university in the United States. Through collaboration with faculty at both universities and a community in rural South Africa, the student team facilitated the repair of a water filtration system installed the previous year. While the team had the specific goal to repair the system, they entered into this commitment with an open-ended approach to problem solving that drew heavily on community engagement and participation. The following paper describes the technical details of the project and the process by which the community was enabled to take the lead in the assessment, design and implementation of a sustainable repair to their water filtration system.