Amanda McMillan Lequieu featured, Uncategorized

Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship awarded for Kumanzimdaka water project

Loo developed his successful grant proposal with support from Michael Bell and Valerie Stull of the LAND Project.  
Loo developed his successful grant proposal with support from Michael Bell and Valerie Stull of the LAND Project.

In March 2015, UW-Madison undergraduate Theo Loo was awarded a Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship for $4,500.00 to pursue a project on “Waterborne Disease Prevention” in Kumanzimdaka, South Africa.  Loo, a Microbiology and Global Health major, designed this project to research and reduce the prevalence of waterborne diseases in Kumanzimdaka village in South Africa by implementing a water security system to protect the village’s water supply. During the summer of 2015, he traveled to the village to test the water source for waterborne pathogens, administer a survey among villagers, conduct water sterilization workshops, and generate a map of the area using ArcGIS.  Data collected will be analyzed and a report developed and sent to Indwe Trust, the LAND Project’s South African collaborator, to implement a physical water source protection system.  To learn more about Theo’s findings, see our page on Water Security.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship team was impressed how this exciting exciting project demonstrates Loo’s commitment to expand the Wisconsin Idea and serve the community around the world.

You can also view a video that Theo put together about Water Security in Mmangweni Village, Eastern Cape, below.

https://vimeo.com/183134892

 

 

Amanda McMillan Lequieu featured, In the news

The LAND Project featured in University of Wisconsin’s “Grow” magazine

Wisconsin’s life sciences’ periodical, “Grow,” recently featured The Land Project’s efforts in the Eastern Cape.  In  “Field Notes: South Africa,” Aisha Liebenow chats with recent LAND volunteers and visiting faculty and summarizes the current activities of the Project.

The article touches on the efforts of the LAND Project at mitigating commons erosion through rotational grazing.  This form of grasslands management, which actually originated in Africa, ‘will potentially double the level of animal production while also building soil quality, reducing erosion and promoting wildlife habitat. LAND has conducted workshops with farmers on rotational grazing and helped develop a supply chain connecting local grass-based meat to national and international markets.”

Leibenow also highlights students who recently visited the Eastern Cape with the LAND project through a new global health certificate field course, “The Agroecology of Health,” via the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  “Bell and doctoral student Valerie Stull brought 10 undergraduate and two graduate students to the Eastern Cape for a 15-day visit that encompassed learning about agroecology and hydrology systems and working with community members to establish a one-acre vegetable garden at a school in the village of Kumanzimdaka”

Read the full article on Grow’s e-magazine site.