Dominican Republic
News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (2/25/09)
WATER FOR PEOPLE TO HOST CONFERENCE IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND WILL
RECOGNIZE SUSTAINABLE WATER AND SANITATION PROGRAMS
Water For People is exploring a possible partnership with the Engineers Without Borders Chapter at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn, who will be assisting with the conference. The new Chapter will be learning program management skills and will play a supportive technical
assistance role to Water For People’s program in the Dominican Republic. The details of the
partnership are being developed. Two Chapter members will attend the conference and assist
with gathering data.
Water For People to Host Conference in the Dominican Republic
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
By: Bob Adamski
The Conference will Address Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Challenges
Read the full article here
Water For People is exploring a possible partnership with the Engineers Without Borders Chapter at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn, who will be assisting with the conference. The new Chapter will be learning program management skills and will play a supportive technical assistance role to Water For People’s program in the Dominican Republic. The details of the partnership are being developed. Two Chapter members will attend the conference and assist with gathering data.
Mission with Engineers without Borders – NYU:Poly
GISCorps Volunteers train Students at NYU: Poly
Read Full Article from GISCorps here.
In February 2009, we received a request for volunteers from Lonna Gordon, a Project Manager at Polytechnic Institute of NYU (NYU: Poly). She asked if our volunteers could teach at their upcoming workshop to cover the basics of Google Earth to 15-25 of their students. The objective was to teach them how to plot NGO water projects’ locations in the Dominican Republic and then further populating them with associated information.
Students Study GIS Programming for the Dominican Republic
There may be hundreds of non-government organizations (NGOs) developing projects to provide sanitary water to communities in the Dominican Republic. There may be, but nobody is quite sure. Nor is anyone sure what technology they’re using, how they integrate into the communities they serve, or even if another NGO is duplicating their efforts only a few miles away.
Communication between NGOs in the Dominican Republic could save many people time, money, and wasted effort.
Enter Water for People and the Engineers without Borders chapter at Poly.
The two are creating a partnership to document all the details about water projects in the Dominican Republic and plot them on Google Earth to create an interactive map that NGOs can use to learn more about what is going on around them, what technology is available, and how other groups have tackled the challenges they face.
Poly volunteers dedicate a few hours of their time to learn GIS programming for Google Earth, and to pin data to a growing map of the Dominican Republic. On April 15th, two representatives will be flown to the Dominican Republic to present the work at a water conference in Santo Domingo, where they will meet representatives from other NGOs, and collect more data to expand the map.
This map will be available online to anyone interested in water projects in general, and the Dominican Republic in particular. We hope it will foster communication between non-profits bringing sanitary water to communities that lack it, increasing efficiency and ultimately, their success.
