The week began in about the best way a week can begin – by getting out of the hospital. While the taxi back to the villa was a painful one, it was a freeing one, as I could finally begin living my life like I (almost) used to. With my hospital stay out of the way, lectures and projects began again.
Since I had missed the weekend, I had missed out on a lot of project assignments and continuations from the previous week, so I had to play a little catch-up. Luckily, my team members were on top of things and made it so that I could come back in right where we needed to be. We continued working on our UVC box, and made manuals for the two existing UVC box solutions: the Munchkin 59s, and the Coospider Sterile Tote.
The Munchkin 59s.
We made these manuals because only a couple of days later we had a presentation/interview with Tseinan, an organization predicated on giving children back their smiles by performing cleft lip/palate surgery. They were interested in the UVC box because the mothers of children rarely fully cleaned their baby bottles, and the risk of infection amongst children was heightened as the bottles were constantly dirty. So, one way to help ensure the bottles would stay clean was by sterilizing them using UVC light to kill small pathogens and bacteria.
Team LNBJ at Tseinan.
While there, we asked them tons of questions on what kind of solution would best fit their needs, and how we would be able to design it. Like in Cantaro Azul, something we came across quite frequently was the concept that we really had to ensure that the UVC box mechanism could properly be integrated into the communities in Chiapas. We had to make sure that the device didn’t take too long, that it would last at least 5-7 days on a charge, and that the device was made of a fabric that would let the mothers wear them throughout the day. We also had to ensure the box was not too big lest the mothers start using it for additional storage space, but that the box was big enough that it could actually be used effectively. Essentially, we had to perform a balancing act between making our product as efficient as possible while still making sure we would be able to give them a product they would use.
A smaller version of the baby bottle for our UVC box.
While we were working on the UVC box, we also learned about water as whole in both Mexico City and San Cristobal. We learned about what “safe” water really meant, and how hard it was to make this “safe” water readily available. Whether it was due to an arduous disinfection process or due to a lack of natural resources, Mexico City and San Cristobal both had problems procuring safe, consistent water. To see why the process of procuring water was so difficult, we went through the entire process step-by-step.
A visualization of a water treatment system.
El Encuentro’s water treatment system.
As part of our learning journey, we went to El Encuentro, an organization within a park near San Cristobal. There, we learned about the process El Encuentro took to make sure their water was safe for consumption, with an additional step, chlorination, that I hadn’t thought of as much before. But that wasn’t all, as access to safe drinking water is only one of the steps to ensuring a sustainable water lifestyle. We learned about how they used their dry toilets, and how they composted both pee and feces to create sustainable fertilizers. We also learned about how they collected rain water, similar to Isla Urbana, and used it to give water to schoolchildren so that they wouldn’t go thirsty. These only scratch the surface of what we talked about at El Encuentro, though our visit almost felt like the lecture slides coming to life in front of our very eyes.
The iSEED team at El Encuentro.