In The Gambia, a small country on the western tip of Africa surrounded by Senegal is where you will find the village of N’jau. The Gambia project was originally an agricultural project starting in 2016. The communities’ garden was being trampled by animals and so they asked for a fence that was installed in the first implementation trip. Our partnership with the community next focused on the need for a significant increase in irrigation capacity and we have installed a borehole, 12 water taps, and two 5000 L water tanks that are filled via solar-powered pumps. Along with the community, we are working with the Women’s Initiative of Gambia (WIG) and local contractors to complete this project. We are working to finish the original scope of the project this year and are looking to work with the community to expand the project objectives with a marketplace and cold storage. We plan on traveling within the next 3-9 months to perform more permanent repairs on the fence and work with the community to shape the future of our partnership with them.
What do we do?
The overarching goals of our committee this year are to finish up our past project and begin planning for a new one. The work our chapter has done in N’Jau over the last few years has culminated in a successful garden complete with a new irrigation system and water tower. For our final touches, we are working on adding more tap heads to the garden and improving the material of the garden’s surrounding fence. In doing so, we’ll finally have comprehensive and detailed documentation of the work that countless EWB members have contributed to. As we look forward, the next project intends to further improve the day-to-day lives of the community in N’Jau. Stay tuned to see what we do next!
Engineers Without Borders-USA 