INNOVATION January-February 2017

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A footbridge built by COWI engineer Terrence Davies, P.Eng., and colleagues, Kiewit Bridge & Marine employees, and community members, as part of Bridges for Prosperity, reconnects residents of the Nicaraguan town of Rio Abajo to markets, schools and health care services. P hoto , Terrence Davies, P.Eng.

the world, but it was hard, too. Things we take for granted here, like nice roads, clean water, a sewer system, electricity, were simply not there.” Edwards did enjoy a couple of perks: he organised a tour of the program for a group of Canadian senators that included his boyhood hockey idol, Frank Mahavolich, and met other notables interested in his work, including media personality Rick Mercer and businesswoman, philanthropist and former politician Belinda Stronach. Since he left Ethiopia, Edwards has kept up with the project’s results (WHIST officially ended in 2008), most recently via Facebook. “I like to think the work we did helped,” he says. “I’ve got my fingers crossed, anyways, and from what I can see online, the training we provided was a good investment in the future.” Building Bridges and Community, Nicaragua, 2015 “We design mostly bridges,” says Terrence Davies, P.Eng., of COWI North America’s North Vancouver office, “so it just made sense for us as a company to connect up with Bridges to Prosperity,” a Denver-based charity that seeks to reduce poverty by doing one seemingly small but very important thing—build footbridges to connect rural communities to the larger world. In March 2015, Davies and three other COWI engineers went to Rio Abajo in northern Nicaragua as part of a Bridges for Prosperity team that also included experts from Washington State’s Kiewit Bridge & Marine. Their task: to help the community build a suspension bridge for pedestrians, motorcyclists and livestock to cross the Pueblo Nuevo River—in just eight days (See page 47, Innovation July/August 2016). The old bridge had been destroyed by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and, in the 16 years since, the town of 3,000 had no easy or safe year-round access to markets, high schools, and health care services in Pueblo Nuevo, the closest major town. (Swimming across the river in rainy season is risky.) Instead, the townspeople were forced to travel more than eight kilometres the other way, most of them on foot, to the town of Condega. By the time the COWI engineers arrived in Rio Abajo, members of the community and Bridges to Prosperity staff had already constructed the foundations for the bridge, based on the charity’s standard footbridge design. Because it was dry season, the team was then able to use the dry riverbed to construct temporary scaffolding towers from which they could install the bridge’s permanent steel pipe towers and, then, the cable-supported deck made of planks of tempisque, a Nicaraguan hardwood tree. “The greatest challenge associated with the bridge build,” Davies says, “was the time frame and getting everything we needed there on time. It was the volunteers from the community

who were the ones who really made it happen, though.” More than 150 local families donated labour or supplies to the project, including one father of five children who donated 30 days of work to the project to ensure his children would be able to cross the river safely and walk just two kilometres to secondary school. “As bridge engineers in Canada,”

says Davies, “it’s not always obvious how the work we do is contributing to a community, but in Rio Abajo it was. I’d love to do it again.” Another member of the COWI team, Hendrik Westerink, goes even further: “I would highly recommend that, given the opportunity, more engineers work on international non-profit projects. It’s rewarding both personally and professionally. The ability to contribute so directly to the wellbeing of a community was really powerful for me. When we completed the bridge, I knew the work that I had done would have a positive impact on the local residents' lives for a long time to come.” v Would You Like to Help? International aid projects vary greatly. Some may last only a few weeks, and you can do them on your vacation (expenses are covered). Others are long-term commitments, and you may receive a salary from a government agency, an NGO, or your own company if it is interested in sponsoring you.

To find out more, the websites for these organisations are a good place to start: • Engineers Without Borders Canada • Geoscientists Without Borders Canada • Global Affairs Canada (formerly CIDA) • Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations • United Nations Development Programme • UNICEF • World Health Organisation • Devex

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