A team of NSCC students and faculty from across Nova Scotia are getting ready to travel to Mikumi, Tanzania to install a solar-powered water pumping system at a vocational training school in the region. The team has been designing the system for several months and is eager to collaborate with Tanzanian students to build it and see their ideas become reality.

"It's an amazing opportunity for us - working on an international project, collaborating with students from other fields (across the province and in Tanzania), and learning about the power of renewable energy sources to improve people's lives," says Kelly Krawchuk, an Electronic Engineering Technician student at NSCC Marconi Campus. "Its rewarding to be able to apply the skills I've learned at NSCC to a project like this."

Tanzania largely relies on hydroelectricity. Due to increasing drought and the condition of the energy distribution network in the country, power outages are a nearly daily occurrence. For institutions in rural Tanzania, like the Mikumi Vocational Educational Training Authority (VETA), power outages mean that the electrical pumps that supply the school with water can not function. The new system will capture some of the abundant solar energy available in the area and use it to ensure more reliable access to water on campus.

This project is part of a long-standing partnership between NSCC International and the Mikumi VETA. For more than 10 years, NSCC International has facilitated service learning opportunities for NSCC students and faculty with the school through projects designed to increase tourism and sustainability in the area. This year's project builds on a project completed last year, for which students built a separate solar panel array to power lights and outlets in several of the school's accommodation units.

For more information about the 2015 Mikumi Solar Project, contact kellykrawchuk (at) gmail (dot) com .