[TCCM] [Fwd: Honduras publicity]

[Elizabeth Basha]

An opportunity to help others using all those skills you've gained with 
your MIT education!
Thanks,
Elizabeth

-------- Original Message --------

I hope you might be able to pass along a new service learning opportunity.

You may be interested in FloodSafe Honduras, an international 
engineering and planning service project that is just getting under way 
at MIT.  Our goals are to install a flood early warning system in 
vulnerable coastal areas of northern Honduras and to conduct an 
additional social needs assessment in the area, and then to work to meet 
these needs and foster an ongoing relationship.  Students will have the 
opportunity both to work at MIT and/or to travel to Honduras (fully 
funded!).   This is sponsored by the Lutheran-Episcopal Chaplaincy and 
open to all students.  Please see the announcement below and flier 
attached.  Thank you!

Kristen Bethke
Graduate Student Coordinator,
FloodSafe Honduras Project
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*FloodSafe Honduras: A Warning System and Development Project*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Join the FloodSafe Honduras Project.*
The FloodSafe Honduras project begins February 2005 and will refine and 
install an* early warning system* in the villages of the Río Aguan Basin 
in northern Honduras to notify 10,000 people of impending 
life-threatening floods.  The project will also address quality-of-life 
needs, by completing a needs* assessment* and bringing* educational and 
medical supplies* to the flood-threatened communities. * All MIT 
students* - engineers and non-engineers, those willing to travel to 
Honduras and those who will help from MIT - are invited to participate. 
FloodSafe needs students to assist in technical, social research, 
organizational, outreach, and many other roles.

FloodSafe Honduras is sponsored by the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at 
MIT and funded for $25,000 over two years by Thrivent Financial for 
Lutherans.

*Find out more.*
*FloodSafe Honduras Information Session**
January 20, 4:30 pm*
*20 Chimneys, 3rd Floor, W20 Student Center*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
**Contact Information and Further Details:*
Kristen Bethke, Graduate Student, Project Coordinator <kbethke at mit.edu>
Rev. Johanna Kiefner, Project Director and Chaplain, Lutheran Episcopal 
Ministry <jkiefner at mit.edu>

The prototype early warning system for FloodSafe Honduras was developed 
by graduate student Elizabeth Basha and several other students of 
"DLAB," a two-semester sequence of courses at MIT that focuses on 
appropriate technologies for developing countries. The DLAB team's 
simple solar-powered system uses wireless networks to convey water level 
information to an information hub that processes the information and 
sounds an alarm when deadly flooding is imminent.  The warning system is 
being developed in partnership with the Honduran organization Centro 
Técnico San Alonso Rodríguez.

FloodSafe Honduras is an externally-funded continuation of the DLAB 
project, and it is an exciting opportunity for all MIT students. Plans 
included three student trips to Honduras; the installation of the flood 
warning system; a social, educational, and health needs assessment of 
the floodplain areas still recovering from Hurricane Mitch; and outreach 
in the Boston area for help in meeting those needs.
We hope to involve students from throughout the MIT community, from all 
faiths and with a variety of skills and experiences.

-- 

---------------------
Kristen Bethke
Graduate Student
MIT Man-Vehicle Lab
(617) 258-7552
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: FloodSafeHonduras_flier.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 95925 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/tccm/attachments/20050112/0ba81d69/attachment.pdf