Shuar Health Project - Safe Water & Sanitation

“Shuar Health” began in the summer of 2005 after UCB student Lia Marshall volunteered in the Pastaza Province of Ecuador with several indigenous Shuar, and was invited back to collaborate on ways to improve Shuar Health. Through the Cal Undergraduate Public Health Coalition (Cal UPHC), ten students formed a multi-disciplinary team in Fall 2005 and designed community projects and a research proposal to address malnutrition, safe water and sanitation, and other health needs in Shuar indigenous communities.

The students’ efforts over the next year included teaching a course on indigenous health in the Amazon and securing funding through university competitions. These awards enabled eight undergraduates to implement their research and pilot study projects with Shuar communities in Ecuador during June-August of 2006 in order to determine the best way to support the Shuar. The result was an overwhelming need for clean water and sanitation as a mechanism for improving Shuar quality of life.

The 'SHP' as it became known, grew to include engineers, who were instrumental in implementing rain-water harvesting tanks in ten Shuar communities in the Summer of 2007. A group of 15 students participating in the DeCal course helped with health education and many returned to be part of the core team to continue with the 2007-2008 plans to construct eco-latrines in the Shuar communities as a way to also improve sanitation, aside from clean drinking water.

For their efforts this past year, the team recently was awarded the United Nations Organization Global Citizen Award for a group project.

Read the article regarding the award:
http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=26573"

Project mission:

I. To help students gain experience in the field of public health, poverty alleviation and economic development through research, education, action, and leadership.

II. To collaborate professionally and mutually with the Shuar communities we work with and for. This means an unconditional promise to self-determination and an appropriate implementation of technologies that allows Shuar health to improve and therefore greater autonomy in their communities.

II. To secure funding and increase the long-term sustainability goals of the project, in order that we can fully develop the first two goals into a working model of North-South relations through student involvement.

Potential impact:

1. Provide 1,000 Shuar people with safe water by designing, testing, and implementing appropriate point of use technologies.
2. Allow Berkeley students to develop the skills to make a positive difference in our local and global communities by integrating Research, Education, Action, and Leadership.
3. Reduce the morbidity and mortality rates due to water-borne diseases in Pastaza, Ecuador.
4. Empower the Shuar people with the skills and knowledge necessary to sustainably address community needs that they previously could not resolve.
5. Create a model for sustainable student/community projects with positive outcomes

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $20,278
2. In-kind contribution needs: airplane tickets (frequent flier miles), rainforrest equipment, research materials
3. Other:

   The majority of our costs are airplane tickets to send our team to the project site. Therefore, any donations of frequent flier miles or plane tickets are greatly appreciated!

Our sponsors:

Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH)
Big Ideas (Chancellor’s Office)
Blum Center for Developing Economies (Safe Water and Sanitation Group)
Center for Entrepreneurship in International Health and Development
School of Public Health

Links to external blogs or wikis:

• shuarhealth.blogspots.com

Additional info:

RESEARCH
Through winning the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) Student Award, the Environmental Health Committee of Cal UPHC designed and conducted a research project in 2005 called, “An Assessment of Water Usage and Environmental Health Needs in the Ecuadorian Amazon.” The team returned to Ecuador in the Winter and Summer of 2007 to continuing their work to serve the communities. Moreover, we have laid the groundwork for a comprehensive epidemiological study post-tank construction this Winter, while also building a model ecological compost latrine in one Shuar community. The results of the tank construction on health will be analyzed in Spring 2008, before we return in the summer to complete education and construction programs begun in the prior winter.