Young engineers making a difference in developing world

23-year-old engineering graduate and Young IMechE member Natasha Wilson has recently returned from a two-month volunteering placement in Tanzania, where she worked on improving sanitation and access to safe drinking water in impoverished communities.

The project, called WASH (for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), is run by the Cambridge Development Initiative (CDI), a charity affiliated with Cambridge University, which aims to utilize innovation spun out of the University’s research to make a difference in the African country. 

Natasha funded her trip to Tanzania through IMechE’s Young Members Board Charity Grant, which invites Young Members of the Institution to pitch engineering related projects or activities that can make a difference in communities in the UK and abroad. “I would always do internships in summer but after I finished my master’s I realised that I wanted to experience something different,” said Natasha, who completed her Master’s in Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge earlier this year. “I thought it was the right time to see the engineering world in an absolutely different context and I was intrigued by what I have heard about the work that CDI does in Tanzania.”

After passing a series of interviews, she was selected by CDI and subsequently awarded the £500  Young Members Boardgrant to cover her travel expenses. 

She arrived at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s most populous city, on 28 July, and joined three other Cambridge University students and a group of young Tanzanians building simplified sewerage systems and researching market opportunities for cost-effective water filters in local communities.

“Even in a city like Dar it is not safe to drink tap water because it’s frequently contaminated,” said Natasha. “Moreover, piped water supply is quite intermittent and is not available all the time. In the poor areas, sanitation is a huge problem. People use pit latrines that commonly overflow during the rainy season, and require emptying by hand because waste collection lorries wouldn’t fit between the makeshift houses.”

CDI, Natasha explained, always cooperates with local partners who are then given responsibility for maintaining the sewerage systems and waste management ponds. 

Natasha’s main task, however, was to conduct research for the Cambridge start-up Blue Tap, which develops a variety of products that ensure that locally sourced water can be made drinkable and free from dangerous microorganisms for as little cost as possible.

“We’ve been introducing table top filters, which consists of an upper and lower bucket with a ceramic filter in the middle,” said Natasha. “The filter only costs £30 and filters out 99.9 per cent of bacteria and sediments from any water. It can be used for 7000 litres of water, which makes it much cheaper than buying bottled water, as is done by the majority of residents in Dar es Salam.”

Natasha, who returned from Tanzania on 22 September, now works at the technology consultancy Cambridge Design Partnership. Although she admits that working in a different cultural environment was, at times, challenging, she hopes to work on another, longer-term, project abroad in the future.

Further information regarding the Young Members Board Charity Grant can be found online.