Warm Heart at Work

Although the water team is still missing Thailand all the way from New Jersey, they have started work to solve the water problems in the Mae Wan sub-district. This past Wednesday was the first Rutgers Engineers Without Borders general meeting. The team did a presentation on their six week assessment trip in Phrao. The presentation included a slideshow of documents and pictures obtained. This meeting brought clarity and interest in this project from other EWB group members. In the next few weeks, the team will be busy forming a solid committee of students and professionals, finalizing a presentation to give to companies, and assessing the water sample results.

The team is officially back in action!

The Rutgers University Engineers Without Borders are wrapping up their time in Phrao, and they are pleased to report the assessment portion of the Water project is nearly complete. Although there were minor delays and setbacks, the team has met almost every goal they set out to accomplish on this trip.
This week was a time to tie up all the loose ends. The team completed all the community surveys in Nong Bua and entered the final survey results into the database. Samples were taken of the 88 meter well that serves most of the village, as well as privately-owned shallow wells and household taps that have previously had water problems. All these samples were sent to a lab in Chiang Mai to be tested for biological parameters and other metals. At the Warm Heart office, the team conducted additional tests for phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, ferrous iron, turbidity, conductivity, and sulfide with a colorimeter.
Now the team is homeward bound where they will continue assessing the results of their water samples and surveys, and begin to design solutions for the water problem in Nong Bua. The team plans to return within the next year to begin implementing their solution.

Implementation mission just begun! Look for twice monthly blog updates from the Water team about their progress in New Jersey!

The Water Team is extremely excited to announce that the long-awaited water testing kit has arrived! It was an emotional moment as the deliveryman made his way into the Warm Heart Office with equipment in hand. There was much cause for celebration as the package was signed for, since it is now possible to begin running tests on the water to identify potential contaminants in the Phrao watershed. These tests will determine which treatment methods are necessary for each village.

In addition to the testing kit, the team has also accomplished several other goals this past week. David Pal, a Rutgers University Engineers without Borders member, created a database for the health surveys. Jessica Kretch, another RU Engineer without Borders, and a Warm Heart translator, Khem “P’ Da” Narim, are in the process of translating and collecting surveys. The finished surveys are being uploaded into the database to be analyzed. And an order has been placed for a number of standard solutions that are required for the testing.

On Tuesday, a few team members will begin testing the water supply of Nong Bua. The team will perform all of the standard tests in the water testing kit, as well as a biological test and a few chemical tests. The samples collected will be brought to a water-testing lab in Chiang Mai.

The team is also working on obtaining information about the health status of the people and the healthcare system of Phrao district. This information will be obtained from various public health offices within the district with the assistance of Areeluck “Rose” Parnsoothorn of the Public Health IT database team.

This past holiday weekend, six Warm Heart staff members took a trip to Pai, the “Switzerland of Thailand,” to see all that Thailand’s northernmost mountains had to offer. Getting there was a bit like racing a slalom course, but there were some spectacular views of isolated farming villages and mist-shrouded, emerald-green mountains. After spending a day exploring the sinkholes, bat nests, underground streams and ancient teak coffins of Tham Lod Cave, the group decided to “conquer the Pai River” on a white-water rafting day trip.

The group booked a trip with a local rafting company and showed up bright and early at the office for an American breakfast and words of reassurance. Admonishing our staff to “move our asses,” our Thai guide suited us up and gave us a few simple commands so that we would not start rowing the raft in six different directions. He assured us that by the end of the day we would all have “sexy bodies” from the rowing.

For the first few hours we paddled along the Pai River, seeing hornbills, kingfishers, iguanas, huge colonies of water spiders, and a family of monkeys. The forest was cool and misty from the rain, and one could see columns of steam rising from the hills above the river.

The first stop on the trip was a waterfall with several scalable levels and wading pools. Following lunch, we picked up a new passenger: a Lahu villager who needed medical attention. To give an idea of how remote this excursion was, the only way to get him to a doctor was to raft down the river for four more hours and then drive another hour to the nearest village. He was remarkably calm (or feverish) the entire time. This stood in stark contrast to the Warm Hearters and our guide, who were hollering every time we went through the rapids and gave each other “paddle high fives” each time we cleared a rock without falling over.

Most of the time, the river was calm enough for people to jump out of the raft and swim behind the boat in the deeper parts of the river. We stopped at a hot spring, where our guide helped us cover ourselves in mud. The pictures our guide took were kind of shaky because he was laughing so hard at us as. The last attraction on the ride diving cliff was about twenty feet above the river. We ended the evening lazily cruising along the Pai River. He was very proud of us, as we did not hit each other with our paddles, fall overboard and panic, or cry. Even if we were to fall out of the boat and smash against the rocks, we were to keep smiling. And we had no reason not to keep smiling.

Written by: Paul Mutter

Rutgers University

The Water team’s first priority in assessing the water situation has been to visit all of the villages in the Mae Wen sub-district. Of the 11 villages, they were able to visit 10 in the last week. The 11^th village was not interested in receiving workers from an outside organization, and the group respected their wishes.

During each visit the team met with either the village headmen or the village water chief to discuss water resources and distribution. The systems in the villages ranged from central wells with filtration, aeration and distribution systems, to a complete lack of water distribution systems. In the villages with no water systems, each family has a private well dug by hand, and purchased pumps to bring the water into their homes. In these villages the wells are shallow, with the quality and quantity of the water supply varying greatly.

The Water team is now categorizing the villages by types of water problem and deciding which villages they can assist. Work and planning will be done with local officials to create solutions that are feasible for their respective villages. The long-term goal is the implementation of these projects, and an improvement in the quality and availability of water in the Mae Wen sub-district. Visiting the villages has provided the group with a very good overall perspective on the region and the local culture.

Shannon Pallone remembers one particular excursion to a hill tribe village in the local mountains. “We journeyed into the mountains to visit one of the hill tribe villages, and had the privilege of experiencing their culture.”

Warm Heart is currently developing the beginning stages of a water project, which seeks to improve the overall quality of life through improvements in village water systems. Staff members currently involved in the water project include Shannon Pallone, a second year graduate student at the University of California San Diego, and Ronn Friedlander, Laith Qumei, Jessica Kretch, and David Pal, members of Engineers Without Borders from Rutgers University.

The team’s most recent focus is on the village of Nong Bua, a community with 163 households. This past Monday, the staff members paid a visit to the village to conduct some background research. The region’s water source comes from two existing wells, one of which is inactive due to a build up of manganese in the pipes. The second well is currently in use, though several improvements are needed. The well is 88 meters deep, with water being pumped up and passed through an aeration system before being filtered through sand and gravel. The water is then distributed throughout the community. Despite these purification processes, manganese and iron appear to be precipitating out of the water, coating the pipes in a dark, rust-colored residue. This residue gradually accumulates, causing severe reductions in water flow and pressure. The government, therefore, is forced to clean the system every three to five months, a procedure that costs about 5,000 baht.

Because there is a possibility that the problems with the water supply extend beyond the existence of manganese and iron in the water, the water project team is planning to completely test the water for a more comprehensive report of actual contaminants.

“In the coming weeks we should have a much better idea of the problems facing the local communities,” says Shannon, “as well as a more thorough knowledge of local water technology so that a plan can be formed for improving water quality.”

Improving the water in Nong Bua is the group’s current priority, though further surveying of surrounding villages will be done to determine if possible solutions for Nong Bua can also be appropriately applied to other regions facing similar water problems.

All Board meetings should be this productive!

We met in the Mae Weng AuBauTau conference room – Khun Nai’ok, the head of the AuBauTau, Adjan Som, the deputy head, Khun Dong, the head of youth services, and a new member, the head of the local Council, P’Tie, P’Duan and me. The meeting started with introductions and a review of the Warm Heart mission before moving on to our plans for the summer. At every turn, the AuBauTau team nodded and smiled. To sum up, Khun Nai’ok told us: “We have had the needs and the ideas and even the budget, but not the people and the knowledge to carry out the projects. Now we can.”

The meeting focused on four primary project areas: carbon credits, cultural retrieval and e-commerce, public health, and the children’s homes.

• The discussion of carbon credits reviewed the prospects for selling VERs from a pilot reforestation project in Khun Jae and surrounding villages, for developing a very small-scale landfill methane to electricity project on the Mae Weng dump, and for conducting initial research for a five megawatt biomass co-gen plant burning rice hulls and corn cobs. The AuBauTau team is excited by the possibility that if these projects succeed they will deliver substantial revenue directly to villagers and to local governments. WE are excited because they are going to help us collect the data and line up the necessary support.
• When we raised the e-commerce project, the AuBauTau team was extremely excited because they have a budget for a local handicraft center but don’t have the capacity to market product. We are going to collaborate in identifying master artisans and establishing producer coops, while our IT team builds the site.
• On the public health front, the AuBauTau team informed us that they have a substantial budget for public health IT, but have not had the capacity to develop IT projects. They are delighted that Warm Heart will replicate Areeluck’s Mae Peng project in Mae Weng and is ready to develop new projects, too. They are also excited about Warm Heart’s ties to the Institute of Nutrition at Mahidol University (INMU) in Bangkok and the possibility that we will be able to organize collaborative projects to support local health and nutrition initiatives.
• The Warm Heart Children’s Homes got a major boost today when the AuBauTau team asked us to help with the large number of children in the area who have no parents or are being raised by a grandparent. We explained that we wanted to help, but lacked the capacity to build more than one house just now. The happy solution is that the AuBauTau will help us build and we will staff.

Tomorrow, Prof. Mike Horst, the adviser for Engineers Without Borders from TCNJ, and Huyen Giap, the microenterprise and e-comm intern from UCSD, arrive. The shopping team is off to buy 10 motorbikes, while the rest of us get to scrub the floor of the office.

After fifteen months of focus groups, heart searching, late night discussions, wondrous day dreams and extraordinary support from friends and strangers who share our vision, Warm Heart opens its doors tomorrow!

To be honest, that’s to say too much and too little. The doors in question are sliders to the one room of our building at the local government office. Right now, the room is entirely empty (if you don’t count the unused canning equipment that is temporarily parked at the back). The grounds are littered with construction trash and we have a major landscaping project ahead of us this summer. And, of course, our beautiful Warm Heart land is, well, beautiful – lush, fertile and untrammeled.

But if our material circumstances are a bit constrained, we are doing great! P’Tie (Chatree Saokaew, Warm Heart Executive Director) has made tremendous progress with local officials. Our Board now includes key local dignitaries, the headmen of several villages are just waiting for us to open the office to begin discussion of projects, and the AuBauTau of Mae Weng (the sub-district government where we are located) has asked us to collaborate in a project with them.

This afternoon Rutgers interns Andy Glazer, Jessica Ma, and Paul Mutter, UCSD intern Andrea Castillo, and Warm Heart Fellow Gaudhi de Sedas arrive; next week we will formally hire two administrative staff, three translators, eight researchers, our first house mother and two house “big sisters.” At the end of the week we will welcome a four member Engineers Without Borders team from The College of New Jersey and a five member EWB team from Rutgers followed by three more UCSD interns, three Northeastern University coop students and a final Warm Heart Fellow. By July 4th we should be rocking.

Stay tuned.