Water, risk, and sustainability engineer Nicole Locke had always wanted to work overseas but there had never been a good time to do it. She graduated into a difficult job market and was lucky enough to find a position with Water Corporation in Perth. Fast forward a few years to 2019 and Nicole was considering her next move. 

“I was talking to a mentor and she said, you’ve always thought about going overseas and volunteering,” Nicole said. “’Why don’t you just do it?’ I thought—well, why not?” 

For many technical professionals, once you’ve started down a career path it can be difficult to divert or pause the momentum. But taking time out from day-to-day work to learn something new is a tradition of learners the world over. The practice of sabbaticals, a period of time granted to pursue learning or projects outside of regular duties, was established by Harvard University in the 1880s and soon, it became common practice at all universities. It may be trickier these days to make a sabbatical work with modern life, but the benefits are still the same–new perspectives and new knowledge.

Nicole pursued her dream of volunteering overseas, a self-made sabbatical, by applying for an Australian Volunteers Program role with EWB Australia in the Cambodia office. “I called up someone from EWB because most of my engineering experience was more in strategy, not necessarily the hands-on technical detail and design that most people think engineering is all about,” Nicole said. “And they came back saying, no, actually we need that specific skill set.”In Perth, Nicole works in the water utility sector, a line of work that engenders a profound sense of responsibility. “Everybody needs [clean water], every single community needs it,” she said. “Most people in Australia can turn the tap on and they can take it for granted that they have what they need and that it’s going to be safe. And then moving into places like Cambodia, you no longer get to take that for granted.”

Nicole and a student during a visit to a school in Siem Reap.

Nicole’s first stint in Phnom Penh began in January of 2020. You can probably guess what happened next. Many Australian volunteers were repatriated home in March 2020 and the dream was put on hold – for a few years, at least.  

Once the program started up again, she persevered and headed back to Cambodia at the end of 2022, this time with her partner in tow. Nicole had done a lot of travel over the years (fun fact: she’s visited every continent, including Antarctica!) but her partner was a little less sure. “I was comfortable, I knew what to expect [going back]. I knew how [the program] is so supportive and does a really good job introducing you to the country,” she said. The logistics of moving to a new country can be daunting but the Australian Volunteers Program has been doing this for a long time. Visas and insurance are included, you receive a living and accommodation stipend, there is support in finding affordable accommodation, and you’re entitled to receive language training. And best of all, according to Nicole, you’re inducted with a group of volunteers who are all in the same country. “It’s almost like, ‘Hey,  here’s a support group, pre-made for you’,” she said. 

So at the end of 2022, Nicole started again in Phnom Penh (second time’s the charm, in this case) as a WASH capacity mentor. “A capacity mentor is about mentoring individuals so that their technical and professional skills are increased,” Nicole said. “I think that’s a really rewarding way to work because it’s much more sustainable. Some organisations will think volunteers are just consultants. You come in, you do your project and you leave. But [when I leave] I’m leaving all the understanding and the knowledge in how to do this work.”

Assistive Technology Officer, Mengheang, and Nicole testing the quality of wastewater samples.

The role of a WASH capacity mentor asks you to jump into a variety of projects and lend your expertise in a sustainable way, contributing both to the outcomes of the project and upskilling your team members equally. For Nicole, the work she collaborated on was varied, from practical solutions and prototyping (“People might bring pipes and gears and all sorts of bits and pieces to the office to build pilot technology,” she said) to whiteboard brainstorming and strategy. Being placed in the Cambodian capital meant she and the other engineers were often able to go out into the field and get direct feedback from the community. EWB works with several rural and remote Cambodian villages developing new sanitation technologies, so travel to these places is often an adventure in itself – think tuk-tuk to bus to car to boat and back again. 

Other elements of culture shock can creep into volunteer life too. Coming from the Australian context, international volunteers often discover an entirely different set of parameters in their new roles. From differences in office hierarchies, culture or language barriers, and complex field issues of access and resources, volunteering can be as challenging as it is rewarding. “It is a very difficult environment to work in sometimes,” Nicole said. “It takes a lot of time to find your feet and it requires a lot of support from local or experienced people, but there’s no point beating yourself up about it.” 

What does a day in the life look like for an EWB engineer? It’s very different to living and working in Australia, although it starts out much the same. 

“I would wake up, get ready, go down the elevator,” Nicole said. “I was living in the city in an apartment, it actually overlooked the Russian market [Tuol Tompoung], pretty cool. Then I order a tuk on an app to get to the office – they have great apps, it’s basically Uber for tuk-tuks.”

“The day would be filled with whatever projects we were doing. I was mostly in the EWB office, but sometimes I might need to go to, say, the government’s workshops or meetings. After work, you could just jump on a tuk-tuk and within ten minutes get anywhere you wanted to go, and there are some really incredible places to eat.”

The view from Nicole’s apartment, overlooking Tuol Tompong (the Russian Market).

The benefits of living and working in Cambodia are too many to name but include: quick and easy access to South East Asia (“I went to South Korea for a week because they’ve got direct flights!”) and plentiful time outside of work to pursue other interests (Nicole is writing a sci-fi novel and completed some online writing courses while in Cambodia). 

One last question for Nicole: what was the best meal you ate in Cambodia? “I really like Fish Amok. It’s this beautiful smooth curry that’s the national dish.” 

Actually, you don’t need to go all the way to Cambodia to try fish amok – you can try it at Country Cobb Bakery in Melbourne, run by two Cambodian brothers. Their Khmer creation, the Fish Amok pie, won Australia’s best pie in 2023. If you’re yearning for a taste of adventure, why not try it in pie-form first. 

Food aside, the advice Nicole would give to prospective volunteers is all about expectations. “I think a lot of people go into this sort of thing, assuming ‘I’m going to change the world’,” Nicole said. “I went to try and provide value, but I feel that maybe I got more out of it. Part of what attracted me to being an international volunteer was knowing that by throwing myself into a different cultural context, I would have to adapt and learn and discover different ways of doing things. And that personal growth was definitely one of the strongest draw points.”

If you’re interested in pursuing your own supported sabbatical, consider volunteering overseas as an Australian Volunteers Program Field Professional with EWB.

The post Remote field visits, tuk-tuk commutes, and fish amok: a year in the life of an Australian volunteer appeared first on Engineers Without Borders Australia.

The people of Koh Tnoat live on one of the Mekong’s many riverine islands and rely on water from the river for drinking, washing, cooking, and watering their gardens and livestock. But water from the river, having travelled far through dams and areas of heavy agriculture, often isn’t safe to use, let alone drink.

The challenge of delivering clean water to Koh Tnoat is a complicated engineering problem but one that Cambodian engineer and EWB Engineering Technology Project Lead Mariny Chheang wanted to tackle nonetheless. Mariny studied Environmental Engineering at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and finished her bachelor’s degree in Water Resources Engineering and Rural Infrastructures at ITC in Cambodia. While studying, Mariny visited remote communities and was shocked by what she found. 

“I went to […] the community on the river, the floating village, and I saw they drink the same water [as they use for washing] and the water looked like coffee,” she said. “And it made me feel like I have to work on this [for] my country”.

Mariny in Koh Tnoat for construction of the water treatment plant.

The Koh Tnoat water problem

The town of Koh Tnoat needed clean water and until now, no one had been able to crack this problem. For centuries, water was collected and brought home where it was stored in large concrete jars for several hours. This is an ancient technique used to clarify water as it allows the sediment to settle and clear water can be skimmed off the top. But river water today is different. It’s more polluted from agricultural runoff and chemicals and during monsoon season, it’s incredibly turbid. 

In 2017, a local NGO called the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT) installed a water distribution system for agriculture and irrigation. The system was designed to transport water from the Mekong into a central water tower through 3,000 metres of piping to around 60 houses using solar power. The problem? Buffalo are heavy. The pipes weren’t buried deep enough and weren’t robust enough to stand up to the soil impaction created by the buffalo on the island. The pipes cracked and the water pressure became unreliable. People reverted to the old ways of collecting water.

Community consultations 

The CRDT team reached out to EWB in 2019 hoping that, together, they could fix the water problem in Koh Tnoat. When Mariny and the EWB team arrived in Koh Tnoat, they spoke to the community about what was needed. They expected to learn the community wanted water primarily for agricultural use but a different story emerged during the community consultations. The people of Koh Tnoat wanted clean water, pumped into their homes, for everyday use.

”We found that they use [untreated water] for drinking, cooking, and home consumption. Everyone said ‘We need clean water’. They live on [an] island, they have a lot of water around them, but it’s not that easy to access,” Mariny said. 

Consultation with the Koh Tnoat community in November 2022.

Clean water would change the lives of the Koh Tnoat community, particularly the women as the task of collecting water falls to them. Each morning, women make their way to the river’s edge with two 20-litre buckets attached to bamboo support poles. It’s not an easy chore as the edge of the river is steep, especially in the dry season when the water levels drop low and squelchy mud lines the bank. Even women who’ve just given birth are expected to make the trip to the river to collect water. Mariny and the team committed to providing clean water directly to 60 households, a community farm, a commune, and a primary school. 

Finding a solution

Although the onset of COVID-19 and travel restrictions slowed the work, the EWB team prototyped and tested solutions from 2021. To stand up to the weight of the buffalo, the PVC piping would need to be swapped out for high-density polyethylene (HDPE) instead. The system would need to be powered by solar as Koh Tnoat isn’t hooked up to the grid. 

The previous solution installed solar power panels but the system didn’t have enough capacity to pump water through the three kilometres of pipes needed to reach every household. In 2022, the Cambodian team retrofitted the existing solar system to increase capacity, allowing the system to pump water all day. Once the distribution system was completed in April 2022, Mariny and her team got to work designing a water filtration system to fit the existing infrastructure.  

During this time, we engaged our pro bono technical partner, Aurecon, to support the design of a water treatment plant. They jumped on board and shared their technical expertise, overseeing the design of a filtration prototype. After years of collaboration and prototype testing, Mariny designed a solution inspired by those same traditional water purification techniques that served the community for millennia. 

Sand filtration

Sand filtration is a filtration method that uses sand from the Mekong to filter out algae and particles of sediment from the water. Raw water from the Mekong is pre-treated in a coagulation in-flow tank, mixing with poly-aluminium chloride (PAC) to encourage sediment to form clumps (floc) and, eventually, be filtered out. From here, the water flows into the flocculation tank and a system of baffles is used to slow the flow and allow the particles time to collide, bind, and settle. The water then runs into the sand filter.

Construction of the base of the water treatment plant in Koh Tnoat.

The sand used in the filter must have a diameter of between 1 and 1.5 millimetres to effectively filter the water. If the sand is too coarse, it won’t filter particles as well and if the sand is too fine, it won’t allow the water to flow through fast enough. Mariny and her team have worked with the community to find and test the right type of sand to allow the filter to work optimally, sourcing the sand from the banks of the Mekong itself. The water that emerges from the filtration system isn’t strictly drinkable – like most places in Cambodia, people are still encouraged to boil the water to kill any remaining bacteria before drinking but it’s clean enough for washing, cooking, and agriculture.

The sand filtration and distribution system will be maintained by a supported local water operator from the community, giving control and independence over their water supply to the people of Koh Tnoat. 

The bottom line

The team is on track to complete the Koh Tnout project by December 2023. The total material cost of providing clean water to an entire community comes in at just under $70,000 Australian dollars. Koh Tnoat’s solar-powered water filtration system will become the blueprint for providing clean water to remote communities in Cambodia and beyond.

Fund this work and other projects like it – make a donation today and make a difference for communities like the Koh Tnoat community.

This project received technical support from EWB pro bono partner, Aurecon. EWB Australia’s work in Cambodia receives support from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

The post How traditional sand filtration methods are solving complex engineering problems in Cambodia appeared first on Engineers Without Borders Australia.