Engineering students get down for H2O

Penn Engineers Without Borders dropped their textbooks and got funky for a good cause this weekend.

Six student groups — Onda Latina, Dischord, Soundworks Tap Factory, West Philly Swingers, Freaks of the Beat and Yalla — performed at the Castle fraternity on Friday for Penn EWB’s first fundraiser of the year. The event, called “For the Love of H2O,” was organized in order to raise money for a water distribution project in Gundom, Cameroon.

Gundom is a village of about 200 people in the northwestern province of Cameroon, which is a West African nation slightly larger than California. One of the most prominent environmental issues there is the prevalence of waterborne diseases — which EWB is working to combat.

Davesh Shah, Engineering senior and international chairman for the group, said Penn EWB has established a sanitary, gravity-fed water distribution system in Gundom. With its introduction, citizens no longer have to walk an average of half an hour to acquire water that spreads diarrhea and cholera, among other illnesses.

Penn EWB’s work in Cameroon is unique because, as Shah emphasized in his introductory remarks, “We model sustainability.”

Rather than entering a country, building a high-tech contraption and getting out, Shah said Penn EWB establishes long-term connections in the regions where members work. Penn EWB’s current project in Gundom is a continuation of the work begun in 2007 in another small village in Cameroon called Kob. The group is working with a local NGO called MQLif to complete the project.

During the event, Shah did not boast about his club’s work. Instead, he stood back while performing arts groups danced, sang, tapped and even break-danced for a crowd made up mostly of their friends and EWB members.

College junior Rico Moorer DJ’ed between performances, pausing the music for the regular raffling off of Hydros bottles — filtered water bottles developed by two Penn students — and coupons for Chipotle.

Students were especially excited about the raffle: one leaned forward, clutching his raffle ticket tightly every time a number was called — and slumped back down each time he didn’t win.

In a similar vein, College junior Will Van Eaton said he attended the event because he “wanted free Chipotle.”

For Engineering junior Andres Munoz, the best part of the event was the impromptu, “Zoolander-style walk-off,” that occurred at the end between two Penn EWB students sporting Cameroon attire.

Munoz descibed the walk-off as “fantastic.”

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