Final Info Session: Maymester WaSH Course!

3 credit hours

Maymester: May 17 – June 4, 2019

Questions? Contact Dr. Josh Kearns – jpkearns@ncsu.edu

Working successfully as a professional in the Water-Sanitation-Hygiene (WaSH) sector requires diverse and overlapping competencies. Domain knowledge of relevant technical subject matter is necessary but insufficient. Foundational technical competency must be contextualized by the circumstances in which it is to be employed. Additionally, knowledge of scientific concepts and engineering principles must be carried out not only through implementation but well beyond into monitoring, evaluation, and successive iterative refinement towards durable and adaptable (“sustainable”) solutions. Accordingly, practical and experiential (i.e., “hands-on”) competencies must also be developed.

The purpose of this course is to provide students a brief but intensive immersion in the context of resource-constrained communities in a developing country under the guidance of a local water and health service (nonprofit) organization. An understanding of the historical processes leading to current conditions – in particular the circumstances pertaining to water scarcity and contamination – in these communities is necessary to the development and critical evaluation of public health interventions. Successful interventions must be adapted to the local social, economic, and cultural context. These factors define the challenges and constraints that inform the design and deployment of appropriate technologies for water and sanitation in marginalized and developing communities.