UCLA Engineering Students Travel to Thailand to Build Health Clinic
Project is part of mandate by Engineers Without Borders to train internationally responsible students

Date: August 7, 2004
Contact: Chris Sutton ( chris@ea.ucla.edu )
Phone: 310-206-0540

In the remote hill tribe settlement of Samli, Thailand, access to health care has always been very limited. The nearest doctor is miles away, and the villagers have little or no transportation to reach medical facilities in the regional capital. People with a life threatening illness would travel up to a week to reach a treatment center.

Samli village is located in northern Thailand.

But this August, the village of Samli will officially open its own health clinic, thanks to the efforts of a team of students, including six from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science

The students were part of a joint effort by UCLA, Columbia University and the University of Maryland to build a ten-room health clinic, staffed by a live-in doctor, complete with examination rooms, a lab, pharmacy, overnight room and living quarters. The clinic will be formally presented as a gift to the country's Queen Sirikit during birthday celebrations in August.

The six students from UCLA - Jonathan Hogstad, Lisa Jambusaria, Ismael Nawfal, Regina Quan, Diego Rosso and Philip Wegge - arrived in Samli in late June, after a grueling 24-hour journey that included three flights and a long drive through jungle mountain terrain.

"I didn't know what to expect," said Hogstad, who graduated this year with a mechanical engineering degree, "but the people we met really went above and beyond to take us in and show us who they were, to open up to us."

The students are members of the UCLA chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA). Established in 2000, EWB-USA is a non-profit organization that implements environmentally and economically sustainable engineering projects in developing areas of the world. This year, about 1,100 people, most of them students or professional engineers, are involved in 50 projects in 22 different countries, places as diverse as Mali, Haiti, Afghanistan and Thailand.

The UCLA Chapter of EWB was founded in 2002, and has roughly a dozen active members. Wegge, an environmental engineering Master's student, has been chapter president since 2003.

The ten-room health clinic was completed in July and presented to Thailand's Queen Sirikit as a birthday gift in August.

"As an engineering student I felt I needed something more than just classroom work," said Wegge. "I wanted the hands-on experience, and more importantly, I wanted to help communities that are less fortunate than ours."

EWB-USA projects usually involve the design and construction of key infrastructure systems, such as sanitation and energy production plants. For their project in Thailand, the UCLA students were supported by contributions from the host community, a grant from General Motors and a UCLA engineering alumnus named Richard Gay, who has been a long-time supporter of student projects.

Columbia University students traveled to Thailand in May to construct the frame and roof of the clinic before the UCLA students arrived to finish the inside of the hospital, including the electrical plant, plumbing and water lines, insulation, ventilation, siding and interior walls.

Each day, two professional engineers assigned the students tasks according to a master construction plan, and local workers assisted with digging and other jobs. For some of the students, the work was a new experience.

The UCLA students completed much of the interior of the clinic, including installing sinks like the one shown here.

"There were people who had never touched a tool and others who had building experience, although everybody showed a large ease with the tools," said Rosso, an environmental engineering graduate student, who gained experience in plumbing and carpentry from working with his father on the family home in Italy. "They learned right away how to use them and be independent. It was remarkable."

The students worked nine and ten hour days, and though the hours were long, the work was not monotonous.

"I got to do a bit of everything," said Quan, a third-year civil engineering student from Walnut, California. "When you're done one task, you're given another. Basically, our goal was to get as much done in the time we had."

Throughout the life of the project, everyone was keenly aware that their efforts had to be in service to the Thai villagers, and that any engineering solution had to match local customs.

"We had to understand what these people need," said Rosso. "We could not just go in and say, 'you have a problem and we know how to fix it because we are engineers.' That's not the way it works."

The village of Samli is populated by the Lisu people, ethnic Chinese migrants who had come from across the Burmese border, settling in the mountains to farm the jungle hillsides. They live in one-room homes made of mismatched wooden slats that allow sunlight to shine through. Bathrooms are small huts separate from the one-room houses. The village has a population of about 150 people, making it the largest settlement in the region and the only one with electricity and a phone.

"There is no postal service, no newspaper, just a few televisions with Thai programming, a single public phone," said Rosso. "There was one pick-up truck, but plenty of scooters."

Samli is governed by an elected representative referred to as a headman, who is responsible for eight villages, each one quite distinct, with their own language, manner of dress and cultural traits.

When the students were not busy building the clinic, they had occasional opportunities for cultural exchange. After dinner, the students sat down with the local people, and with the help of two translators, Deeram and Pung-Sar, the students tried to learn some of the Lisu language and the villagers picked up some English.

On their last day in Samli, the villagers recreated their annual New Year's celebrations and invited the students to participate. Two village women, Mi-Shu and Yasinah, dressed the UCLA students in traditional clothes.

Lisa Jambusaria (left) and Regina Quan donned the traditional garb of the Lisu people on their last night in Samli.

Lisa Jambusaria (left) and Regina Quan donned the traditional garb of the Lisu people on their last night in Samli.

"Lisa and I wore bright, colorful clothing with a lot of silver jewelry, and intricately designed headware," said Quan. "Their New Year's celebrations include two weeks of dancing around a special tree, so we linked hands and danced around a pole, which represented the tree that they would dance around during their ceremonies."

Later that evening, the headman's father played a flute-like instrument, which Hogstad described as "a large gourd with five pipes sticking out…I would not have had any idea it was an instrument if someone didn't tell me." The old man played a hypnotic tune, and led a dance as he played. The villagers and the students linked hands and slowly snaked around the room, repeating the steps that the chief's father took as he played his flute.

The experience inspired Hogstad and Rosso to learn more about traditional Thai instruments.

"The next morning, Jonathan and I got up before breakfast and we went to the person who makes the instruments and I purchased a guitar and Jonathan purchased a flute," said Rosso. "The man who made the instruments taught us a traditional song, and for the rest of the trip we would stop in the street and play this one song."

Rosso says such interactions with the local people were made easy by their hosts. "They did not treat us like foreigners. They welcomed us as if we were part of the village. It was wonderful."

"The most important thing that I learned in Thailand was the dignity of these people," said Rosso. "They work for six dollars a day, and everywhere I went in Thailand, I didn't see anyone begging for money. Everyone had a job, worked hard. There is a strong pride and dignity in the conduct of their lives."

The UCLA chapter of Engineers Without Borders is planning another trip for next year, to Tibet. For more information, visit the chapter's web site at http://www.seas.ucla.edu/ewb/.