This blog documents trips that Rice University students have taken to San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico, to work with Cántaro Azul, an NGO dedicated to improve access to safe drinking water in rural communities in Southern Mexico.
The students either work on projects at Rice for Cántaro Azul and then travel to Chiapas to deploy them, or they spend the summer working with Cántaro Azul as Loewenstern Fellows. In the first case, students develop their projects at Rice as part of courses such as CEVE/GLHT 314 (Sustainable Water Treatment for the Development World) taught by Dr. Jorge Loyo; ENGI 120, the first-year engineering design course currently taught by Drs. Deirdre Hunter and Faruk Kececi, and previously by Drs. Ann Saterbak and Matthew Wettergreen; or GLHT 451 and GLHT 452, the capstone courses in the Global Health Minor. The trips to Chiapas are organized with the help of Cántaro Azul, the Center for Civic Leadership (CCL) and the financial support of different departments and the School of Engineering.
The Loewenstern Fellowship provides students with funding, preparation, mentorship, and support to conduct critical service and/or civic research outside of the United States. Past Loewenstern fellows have worked in South America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa with partner organizations focused on a variety of social issues including education, healthcare, political and economic development, and gender equality.
2023 – Loewenstern Fellows
This year, Cántaro Azul hosted Shivani Gollapudi and Alexander (Alex) Cho who are working on water quality issues, including nitrates & nitrites and disinfection by-products.
2022 – Loewenstern Fellows
After a 3-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 5 Loewenstern fellows are headed to Chiapas this summer: Hafsa Ahsan, Melissa Cantu, Jayaker Kolli, Ana Saucedo, and Yifei Zhang. It’s exciting to be back!
2019 – Laney Baker and Alyssa Graham (Loewenstern Fellows)
Laney and Alyssa were the 2019 Loewenstern Fellows working with Cántaro Azul. They were in Chiapas for ten weeks in the summer of 2019, working at El Encuentro developing different projects, including building the wetland designed by the Spring Break team. You can learn more about the Loewenstern Fellowship here.
Spring Break 2019 – UV Hermanos & Wetland (aka El Encuentro) Team
Team UV Hermanos was an ENGI 120 team who took the course in the Fall 2018. The students, Lucas Esnaola, Josh Kearney, Eduardo Landin, Arav Singhal, and Yufei Shan, developed a flow-regulating device for the Mesita Azul, the UV-disinfection device designed and used by Cántaro Azul in Chiapas.
The second team worked on the design of a demonstration wetland to treat greywater on-site and evaluate its feasibility and functionality for Chiapas communities. The members of this team were Morgan Gillis, Aanu Jibodu, Talia Kramer, and Quinn Mathews.
This trip was led by 2018 Loewenstern fellow, Talia Kramer. Thank you, Talia for all your hard work putting together the trip, and thank you to the Center for Civic Leadership at Rice for supporting the group as part of their GEO Mexico program.
We also wish to thank this year’s sponsors for their generous support: George R. Brown School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK).
2018 – Talia Kramer (Loewenstern Fellow)
Talia Kramer is Rice’s first Loewenstern Fellow working with Cántaro Azul. Talia was in Chiapas for ten weeks in the summer of 2018. You can learn more about the Loewenstern Fellowship here.
2018 – Getting Warmer
The May 2018 trip was the result of the semester-long work of Getting Warmer, a 4-student team in ENGI 120 in the Fall 2017. The students, Nikhita Gangla, Irene Kwon, Scott Lin, and Alejandro Moyano, developed an incubator for Cántaro Azul bacterial quality testing.
We would like to thank Sandra Sales and the rest of the team at Cántaro Azul for their help on planning this trip. We also wish to thank the people and institutions who contributed to Getting Warmer’s trip: the OEDK team, NEWT, the Center for Civic Leadership (CCL), the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Bioengineering (BIOE), and Mechanical Engineering (MECHE).
2017
The first trip took place in May 2017. The students were Horatia Fang, and Sophia Grossweiler and Su Chen Teh. Su Chen and Horatia worked with Cántaro Azul during the 2017 Spring term in two different projects as part of Jorge Loyo’s CEVE/GLHT 314 course. Sophia volunteered to join the trip because of her interest in water and sustainability.
For the 2017 trip, we would like to thank Sinéad Keogh and the rest of the Cántaro Azul team for their time and effort to plan our stay in San Cris. We also wish to thank the people and institutions that contributed to our trip: NEWT, the Center for Civic Leadership (CCL), the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEVE), Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CHBE), Harold Fock from Foundation Capital, Edward Robinson, David and Lisa Costello, and Philip and Diana Grossweiler. Thank you!
