BHS grad builds bridge to better lives
Even in her freshman year at the University of Iowa, Tara Olds was interested in international opportunities for engineering students.
The civil engineering major, now 22, grew up in Bettendorf and was encouraged by her parents from an early age to help those less fortunate than herself. But research that first year turned up nothing. Luckily for her — and for the people of Yavina, Peru — that changed in January 2006 when Tara discovered Bridges to Prosperity.
Bridges to Prosperity is a nonprofit organization based in Virginia whose mission is to fight extreme poverty by building bridges, thus enabling people in developing nations to gain access to schools, clinics, jobs and markets. Olds contacted founder Ken Frantz about possible opportunities for college students, learned about the organization’s activities in Ethiopia and Peru, and decided to build a bridge as her senior project.
“Typically in a senior project, you would work with a local firm, working on some project that they brought to the class,” Olds said.
She said these projects were often ordinary building projects, like a design for a new traffic intersection. But Olds and some other friends — who are all members of the Iowa Chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World — decided that they wanted something more interesting.
“We wanted to do something in the developing world, to make our project actually have a tangible result,” she said. They also wanted a project where they played a more active role than students do in a typical senior project. Together, the group approached their professor and, working with Bridges to Prosperity in partnership with nonprofit organizations in Peru, came up with a plan to build a footbridge for the people of Yavina.
The Bettendorf High School graduate joined with Avery Bang, of Coralville, Iowa; Jenna Kusmierek, of Peotone, Ill.; Ryan Wallace of Des Moines; and Irund “Sergio” Ilunga A-wan, of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Together, they named their team “Continental Crossings” and began fundraising and promotions, launching a Web site to keep supporters up to date on the project.
By November 2006, the group found themselves on a 12-day trip to survey the site. Getting to Peru was the easy part. Flying into Lima, the group then took a one-hour flight from there to Cusco, where transportation began to get more interesting.
From Cuzco, they piled into a 4X4 vehicle with a roll cage and drove eight hours over rough gravel roads through steep, frighteningly mountainous, terrain. Eventually the road ended, and from there, the group began a two-hour hike to the remote Andean village, where they camped at the village school at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
The village of Yavina is located on the Santo Tomas River, in the District of Llusco in the Province of Chumbivilcas, in the Region of Cusco. Two tributaries empty into the Santo Tomas River near the village. Residents of Yavina, Colpa and other surrounding villages must cross these tributaries in order to interact and trade with one another, and for 150 area children to attend the school located in Yavina. One of the tributaries has a bridge built by the government some years ago, but the second had only two braided vines as a crossing — one to walk on and one that acted as a handhold.
The crossing was 20 feet above rapidly moving water and quite dangerous; and in the previous three years, three children had died attempting to cross that bridge.
The site was challenging — one side was solid rock; the other on an island between the two tributaries. They needed a bridge that would survive the rainy season’s flash flooding and that could be built from locally obtainable materials.
The team returned to Iowa City and spent the next few months designing and planning the actual construction. In May, the team returned to Peru and began the month-long building project.
The team worked closely with the local community, which provided labor, masons and many of the materials.
“One person in our group spoke Spanish fluently,” said Olds, referring to Sergio, who speaks seven languages. “That made it easier to communicate with everyone.”
Working with local masons, the team was able to conquer the site location and soon had built a 50-foot suspended footbridge from local rock, lumber, concrete, reinforcing steel rods and chicken wire. The new bridge is large enough to accommodate foot and llama traffic, but not large enough for cattle or horses — preventing livestock from wandering off. But more importantly, it is safe enough that children no longer have to fear falling into the waters below.
Bridge-building projects
To learn more about this and other bridge-building projects, visit the following Web sites:
n continentalcrossings.org. Continental Crossings Web site explains the project, provides information on members, and is filled with photos of the site — before and after.
n bridgestoprosperity.org. Bridges to Prosperity — learn about other projects across the developing world, and how you can help support this endeavor to eradicate extreme poverty.