The Desert Research Institute and the University of Nevada, Reno's Hydrologic Sciences Program are jointly sponsoring a new student organization focusing on water supply and quality problems facing developing nations. The Student Association for International Water Issues (SAIWI) involves about 30 graduate students and faculty advisors in UNR's Hydrology Program and DRI.
SAIWI President Braimah Apambire, a post doctoral research associate in DRI's Division of Hydrologic Sciences (DHS), says the association will encourage discussion of solutions for the lack of reliable, potable water supplies in developing countries and work with aid groups and international technical experts to promote research, education, and training concerning international water resource issues. SAIWI's faculty advisors are Dr. Jim Thomas, an associate research professor at DRI, and Scott Tyler, Director of UNR's Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences.
Apambire says Tyler, with the collaboration of the University of Notre Dame, is helping to send four SAIWI student members to undertake water well hand-pump maintenance in Haiti. Another trip is planned to the World Vision's Ghana Rural Water Project for students to participate in their water resource development to rural communities in Ghana. Apambire, a Ghanaian, was instrumental in establishing SAIWI.
"More than 30 percent of the developing world's population--more than a billion people--do not have access to potable drinking water supplies," Apambire says. "In certain population segments of Africa and Asia, safe drinking water coverage can even be as low as five percent. Eighty percent of illness and death among children in these regions is attributed to unsafe drinking water."
DRI has contributed a light, portable drill rig to SAIWI for training students in drilling water wells, as well as providing some travel funds for international water resources development projects.
SAIWI hopes to establish a colloquia and/or workshop series describing issues related to water supplies in developing countries, such as low-cost water supply technologies and strategies for the development of water resources. During the 2001 spring semester, Apambire taught a class on water supplies in developing countries at UNR.
Through partnering with aid agencies in developing countries, SAIWI hopes to provide members with hands-on, overseas experiences so that they are able to understand and participate in the design and implementation of community-based, safe and dependable water supply systems in various countries.