FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — With help from students and local professionals, a University of Arkansas engineering professor has led an effort to establish a Northwest Arkansas chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA. Thomas Soerens, associate professor of civil engineering, organized the chapter’s first meeting and will serve as founding president.

“Obviously, doctors and nurses have great power to improve the lives of people in underdeveloped nations,” Soerens said. “But engineers offer a lot too. In fact, engineering projects, especially design and construction of clean water and sanitation systems, can lead to significantly fewer people needing medical services.”

Started in 2000, Engineers Without Borders-USA is a nonprofit humanitarian organization that works with members of developing communities worldwide to improve their quality of life by implementing sustainable engineering projects, such water collection and supply, wastewater treatment and sanitation, bridge and building construction, electrification and many others. By way of these projects, the organization provides training for engineers and engineering students.

Engineers Without Borders-USA contributes to meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to reduce by half the proportion of the world’s population who is unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by 2015. Without the benefit of an official chapter, Soerens and some of his students have already contributed to this goal. With scrap materials at the Engineering Research Center, Soerens’ students designed and built a simple water-catchment and filtration system. Soerens then traveled to South America last summer and built a modified version of the system, so that residents of Zaragoza, Colombia, a small village on the Amazon River, could have permanent access to clean drinking water.

Years ago, Soerens worked at an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan. He also directed water and sanitation projects in the Republic of Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean.   

Soerens said 11 people attended the first meeting, including a local engineer who helped build hospitals in Haiti. In addition to electing officers, they submitted a partnership agreement to the national organization, which has acknowledged the group as an official chapter. Soerens emphasized that engineers throughout Northwest Arkansas may join. He said that plans are under way to start a similar student organization.