Article appearing in the
Boston Globe
August 8, 1999

A small group of college students from Massachusetts is quietly transforming the quality of life in remote mountain villages of Peru where Inca descendants live in adobe houses with no electricity, no running water, and one community telephone.  Led by a campus minister and two engineering professors, a dozen student volunteers from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell have designed and installed solar-energy systems high in the rugged terrain of the Andes, the world's most unstable mountain range. Here, amid threats of earthquakes, landslides, and flash floods, the electricity is used to power lights, emergency radio communications, and vaccine refrigerators in four medical clinics.  Illustrating a new "service-learning" model that links academics and community service, the PerUML undertaking also reflects a growing interest in exploring renewable energy technologies for developing countries. The project was selected for presentation at Solar 99, the annual conference of the American Solar Energy Society.  Inspired and guided by 35-year-old Reverend Paul Soper of the university's Catholic Campus Ministry, a multi-cultural group of students has invested hundreds of hours of service between their Lowell classrooms and the Peruvian towns of Malvas, Huamba, Cochapeti, and Quian.  Participants are undergraduates and graduates working on capstone projects or mini-projects through the university's solar-engineering program. Using photovoltaic technology, they are creating solar-powered solutions to improve poor living conditions. Plans call for eventual expansion to use other areas of university expertise.

Before the college team designed a new refrigeration system for Malvas, doctors from the nearest city of Huarmey, a coastal settlement north of Lima, would travel for hours on steep, narrow mountain roads with vaccine stored in a cooler on ice.  "Some vaccine would spoil before it could be administered to children," says Soper.

As they tackle these "real-life" challenges, the students develop practical skills that complement their academic training. Their solar designs are highly functional, ranging from cooking and lighting systems to ice-making and water-purification.  In addition, one student is working on a data acquisition system to monitor performance of the Peruvian installations. Another is refining a solar coffee-drying process as an alternative to the conventional system that consumes large amounts of wood and electricity. Energy experts estimate that traditional methods of drying coffee beans have destroyed more than 16,000 acres of forest in Central America.

While there was widespread interest in solar energy in the 1970s due to the oil crisis, the UML solar program remains one of the few available today and attracts students from all over the world, says John Duffy, chairman of the program and a professor in the mechanical-engineering department. He says that demand is expected to increase, especially internationally, as emerging countries offer laboratories to promote the benefits of sustainable development.

Duffy and Soper say the introduction of solar power could improve health and economics -- and possibly curb urban migration -- in destitute areas such as the Andes, where people survive at subsistence levels by sharing farmland, tools, and water for irrigation. They emphasize local ownership, making sure that villagers set priorities for the project and learn how to install and maintain the systems.

"If this simply becomes a line of charity flowing from the US to Peru, we've failed to meet our goal," says Duffy, 54. He cites evidence of well-intentioned efforts run amok, like a costly red tractor -- unsuited for the Andes' steep, precarious angles -- that's parked pointlessly in the Malvas town square.  "You can't drive a tractor on an incline that's 30 to 40 degrees," says Soper.  "Some government agency delivered it one day, and it's virtually useless. The tractor became our model. This is what we want to avoid."  "It's important to listen, not to propose solutions," says Dennis Villanueva, 35, a mechanical-engineering student who worked for the Ministry of Planning in his native Honduras before coming to graduate school here. Villanueva says he plans to start a company to promote the use of renewable energy in South America's rural areas.  Equipped with a decade of ministry, Spanish fluency, an astrophysics degree from Harvard University, and boundless energy, Soper has enlisted support from private donors, church groups, and university programs.  As the dynamic chaplain ferrets out various funding sources, Duffy and Alan Rux, a professor in the department of electrical engineering, ensure that the students' projects relate directly to their studies.  The PerUML initiative began with a casual conversation about two years ago at one of Soper's weekly spaghetti suppers at the university's Catholic Center.  Steve Lynn, a volunteer in the Campus Ministry Association's local outreach work, suggested a global undertaking.  "How about a link between the university and [overseas] communities?" Lynn asked.

An international service project appealed to Soper, who approached the Boston-based Society of St. James, an order of Maryknoll missionary priests serving Latin America. He learned that a parish in Huarmey, 150 miles north of Lima, was interested in collaborating with the university.  In Huarmey, local priests directed them to Malvas. On a reconnaisance visit in the summer of 1997, Soper and five students say the inadequate health care emerged as an urgent concern during conversations with residents, teachers, mothers' clubs, and medical professionals.  Returning the following winter with plans for improving lights and communication equipment in the town clinic, the volunteers discovered El Nino's devastation and quickly adjusted their priorities.  "Roads and homes were literally washed away," says Soper, who diverted $700 from PerUML fund-raising efforts to provide tin roofing for emergency shelter in the village clinic, schools, and churches. 

 On the third trip last summer, the team designated Malvas as a prototype for expanding their solar service. They installed a solar station to power a vaccine refrigerator, lighting for the medical post, and radio communication between between Malvas and Huarmey.

The pace intensified during the most recent trip in January, say students.  "In 10 days, we installed [solar energy] systems in four towns," says Luis Alegria, 33, of Colombia. "Each trip was five to six hours by car on difficult roads. It was not new to me, but my American classmates had never been in this environment."  The hands-on experience has led several students to revise post-graduate career plans. Initially interested in research, Sirikul Prasitpianchai, 26, says she now intends to return to her native Thailand and open a branch of a small solar company that specializes in rural electrification.  "We would not learn like this in a classroom," says Prasitpianchai. "We are changing, making decisions, and adapting our original plans."  "It's going from paper to the real world," says Villanueva. "You see how your work can impact life in an area where people are so much in need. It's also an opportunity to work in teams, with deadlines. My relationship with students and professors is more intense and unique."

"We're writing the rules as we go along and taking time to reflect," says Soper, who led the group's most recent trip to Peru in July.  "Many times, engineering is separate from real life and contact with people," says Alegria, who changed careers and returned to school because working with computers didn't offer him enough human contact. "This project is good for people."

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