Minutes for RE meeting

Minutes for RE meeting on 21/7/10

- Briefing of RE report and announcement to be made in front of school
- Presentation of recce trip to Vietnam by the Boys Brigade group
- Guests are Dian from Mercy Relief, and an NUS group of students doing similar project in same village
- There was a presentation of activities conducted during trip, which included:
- Household interviews conducted
- Collected water samples for testing
- Obtained map of village
- Medical reports of villagers from hospital
- Several observations of villagers- attitude, etc
- Took note of hazards, environment and surroundings of village
- Villagers are aware of negative impacts of river on their health
- Results of water-testing, conclusions, elaboration
- Presentation of pictures taken during recce trip, drew several conclusions
- Presentation of surveys/ interviews conducted
- Service and learning focus and objectives
- We were introduced to the Lily pad water filtration system
- It was at low costs,and was mobile
- It is made for brackish water
- The manufacturing is in China
- However, the machine not yet in manufacturing stage
- Very basic purposes- as it is made up of only charcoal
- Has a limit of volume of water filtered
- 6-8 months for production to finish- may not make it in March, which is when we are going for the trip itself
- Household water filtration system may not be effective as only some houses can be catered to, and hence the rest will be ignored
- Limitation: system may not cater to other needs of water, attending to consumption only
- Our project might cater to their other needs e.g. washing, sanitation, while theirs (the group of NUS students) is for water consumption
- Water systems might be shared amongst villagers
- Suggestion: Water points at different clusters of houses to allow fair and equal distribution of clean water?
- Designed water systems- mainly for sanitation
- Water filtration systems might be reliant on electrical supply- not feasible as there might be a lack of electricity at rural areas i.e. the village
- Suggestion: Merger between our group and NUS group in this project???
- Keep reminding villagers on sanitation and water responsibility and safety
- Bring back at least 1liter of water samples for testing the next time we visit the village