At 20, Montana State chapter of Engineers Without Borders has history of helping

BOZEMAN - For 20 years, students in the Montana State University chapter of Engineers Without Borders have been partnering with school communities to improve the educational experiences of children in the equatorial village of Khwisero, Kenya.

Participants and organizers recently gathered on campus to celebrate the student club's 20th anniversary by hosting a dinner that also served as the group's largest annual fundraiser.

To date, MSU EWB has engineered dozens of projects in the Khwisero region, including 15 water wells, 13 latrines, two rainwater catchment systems, an eyeglasses clinic, a water distribution system, a library and a biogas latrine, which uses bacteria and microorganisms to break down waste and produce biogas and fertilizer. The club's current projects include developing a larger latrine facility, and future projects under consideration include an additional water well, a classroom laboratory and an agricultural project.

Between eight and 10 EWB students, which can include students from colleges other than MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, from MSU travel annually to Kenya to conduct site surveys, provide labor for existing projects, and work with the Khwisero-based nonprofit M-Koko and government representatives.

"Students in Engineers Without Borders who visit Khwisero do site assessments, among other things," said EWB chapter co-president Victoria Trivitt, a senior biological engineering major from Puyallup, Washington who has twice traveled to Kenya.

Trivitt leads the club, along with co-president Allee Meyer, who earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from MSU earlier this year and is now working toward an associate degree in interior design at Gallatin College MSU.

"When I went to Kenya, we met with M-Koko and with government offices to ensure that our project has not only been identified by M-Koko as a need, but also by the government as a need," Trivitt said.

After returning from Kenya, the group draws up project plans and sends them to M-Koko, which was founded by Khwisero native Ronald Omyonga, an architect in Kenya's capital city, Nairobi. The M in the name represents Montana, and the word koko means "bridge" in Luyia, one of the roughly 70 languages spoken in the country.

When the student-run club launched at MSU in 2004, its goal was to build a single well at a primary school. Having potable water nearby meant that girls wouldn't have to leave class to fetch water for the coed school. This laborious chore has long been assigned to women and girls in Kenya, which cost the schoolgirls precious time in the classroom, Omyonga said.

EWB holds two fundraisers each year. One is a 5K run each April, and the other is a dinner in the fall, called The Jubilee, with a silent auction that often draws alumni from the MSU EWB program. According to Trivitt, the group raises between $45,000 and $55,000 per year, which is enough to cover its annual costs.

Trivitt said 14 club alumni were at this year's Jubilee, people who had graduated between 2008 and 2024. "We also had the first EWB engineer that traveled from MSU to Khwisero 2006," she said. "It was an inspiring evening for the 20 or so current students that attended because so many former students shared their experiences, offered advice and told fun stories from their time in the group."

Omyonga traveled from Kenya to attend the event.

"They have impacted communities in many special ways, including providing access to clean, potable water," he said. "As a result, we've been able to look at improved health outcomes, and schools' performances have improved because now students are focusing more on school and there are higher retention rates for girls."

Trivitt said she is grateful for the opportunity EWB provides her to serve others.

"Our goal is to serve other people," she said. "It has been a joy to work with a group of students on something bigger than us and MSU."