Work Project Update (kind of)

Hey guys, it’s been awhile, sorry, life called!! I think most of you have gotten a copy of my proposal via email, (if you’d like to get it let me know). UVM recently contacted me to write something for their Reunion weekend’s theme of the “environmental and sustainability arenas”. So, here is what I wrote:

My name is Chelsea Ransom, and I graduated from UVM in 2005 with a BS in Civil/Environmental Engineering, and a minor in Community and International Development. I’m currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, West Africa, where I arrived in July of 2007, and will stay until September 2009. My village is a small Senufo village with about 250 residents. The literacy rate of my village is around 5% which is way below the national average of 24% (reference). The most widely spoken language is Senufo, with over 20 distinct dialects. Despite the many scholars working in Mali to preserve the language, it remains unwritten, and without its own alphabet. The second language is Bambara, a much more widely spoken language, and is what I use to communicate with my community members. A third, much less common language spoken in my village is French, the national language. My job title here as ‘Water Sanitation Engineer’ covers a small fraction of the work I perform in the environmental and sustainability arenas.
A water and sanitation committee has formed in my village, which is in charge of educating the rest of the community members in proper health and sanitation activities such as hand washing with soap after leaving the restroom and before eating, filtering and treating drinking water, sleeping under a treated mosquito nets, decreasing the amount of standing water, and keeping latrine facilities and garbage areas away from drinking water sources. Some of the engineering projects we’re working on include top and bottom well repairs, washing area, soak pit, and slab latrine construction, and hand washing stations.
There is also a women’s shea association who is currently selling shea nuts to raise enough money for a cereal/shea grinding machine, magazine construction, and women’s literacy and numeracy trainings. A majority of these women have also begun working towards creating a community garden space with a central concrete and mortar brick lined large diameter well. The community garden will tie into a two-week long child nutrition and ameliorated porridge demonstration based on the Hearth model, as well a composting and waste management training.
One-third of the Peace Corps Model is based on providing sustainable, technical support to a community. All of our projects aim to be sustainable in the villages which we serve after our two year tour is over.