originally appearing in the
Winchester
Star
This
college student had never traveled out of the country or even
left the East Coast.
But this summer she found herself worlds away from her
Frederick County home in a remote section of South Africa.
Bringing much-needed water to a small impoverished village
was the mission of this long journey.
Holly Hillyer, 20, of Frederick County and a James Wood
High School graduate, was attracted to a flier last fall
enticing engineering students to travel and help other countries.
Holly Hillyer (left) of Frederick County and Charles Weistroffer
of Goochland, both engineering students at the University
of Virginia, helped obtain water for a village in South
Africa. After raising money for the trip, the two directed
the drilling for water at the site in the village of Welverdiend.
The project brought much-needed water to a school in the
area. Students at the school (below) in Welverdiend benefited
from the water project sponsored by an area resident and
an another student from the University of Virginia.
(Photos Provided by Holly Hillyer)
As a student at the University of Virginia and a mechanical
engineering major, she decided to check it out and see what
she could do.
Several meetings and a few months later, she was on a mission
to help provide water to the village of Welverdiend.
Teaming up with fellow student Charles Weistroffer, 20,
of Goochland, also a mechanical engineering major, Hillyer
began focusing on replacing a water pump to carry water
to a nearby school.
After talking to residents of Welverdiend, a village of
about 12,000, and a student who had been there, the two
students made the decision to concentrate on helping get
water to the school.
“We met with a student who had gone with the Study
Abroad Group to Welverdiend,” Hillyer said. “She
told us about the absence of water and helped us decide
on the project.”
The area of Welverdiend they concentrated on had about
6,000 people, and the school had no running water.
Adviser and facilitator on the project, Robert Swap, a
professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at
the University of Virginia, said the origins of the project
go back to an educational consortium set up with southern
African universities.
This consortium focuses on education, research, and outreach
associated with the environment of southern Africa.
The contact person in South Africa was Wayne Twine, acting
director of the University of Witwatersrand’s rural
facility.
Student groups had previously visited Welverdiend and donated
books and money to a resource center for the school. The
group from UVa. had been taken by the lack of water at the
school and how this affected both hygiene and the schools’
attempt at growing vegetables, Twine said.
From these previous trips, students continued to take an
interest in the village and this is how Hillyer and Weistroffer
heard of the project and got involved, Twine said.
For the full article, please see the Winchester
Star article
