By Niqui Lacquement 

Just south of Chinunka in the Republic of Malawi in southeastern Africa, the main roadway floods every year during the rainy season. This roadway provides critical access to the Kaseye Mission where the Kaseye Community Hospital and the Kaseye Girls Secondary School are located.  

The Kaseye Community hospital serves patients from nearby districts who need treatment for illnesses, prenatal care, and surgery. The Kaseye Girls Secondary School is considered by residents to be one of the best secondary schools in the country and girls travel from across the country to attend. During the rainy season, the dirt roads become impassable for weeks at a time making it difficult and dangerous to access these facilities.  

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) serves communities like the one near the Kaseye Mission that don’t have resources to hire professional engineering services to improve roadways that lack infrastructure, have poor drainage, and excessive erosion.   

I first heard about EWB while working on my Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. Ever since then, I have had the desire to volunteer with EWB and use my technical skills for one of their service projects. In fall of 2023, I joined EWB’s Northern Virginia Chapter (EWB-NOVA) and quickly became involved with the Kaseye Roadway Drainage Issue Project.  

EWB-NOVA is providing civil engineering design and survey services to improve approximately 8 km (about five miles) of roadway. Our main focus is a 1.5-km stretch that connects the main road (T-304) to the hospital and school.  

In April 2025, our EWB-NOVA team (two civil engineers specializing in land development, a geotechnical engineer, and a construction manager) made the two-and-a-half-day trip from Washington, D.C., to Kaseye. We spent a week surveying the existing road conditions (using a Trimble Catalyst with a TerraFlex service donated by Trimble Inc.) and met with community members to build relationships and get their input on the road conditions. We conducted site walks with nine potential local subcontractors and met with officials in the Chitipa District and the Karonga Diocese to ensure we were following local procedures and requirements.  

During our visit, we completed all the surveying work and identified a shortlist of local subcontractors to hire for implementation. Beyond the technical progress, we had a wonderful time experiencing the Malawian culture, building relationships, and using our professional skills and abilities to help this community in need. 

Now that we are back home, we have begun analyzing the survey data in Civil3D and drafting preliminary plans. We are so grateful to be part of this project and are committed to providing a design solution for implementation. Our intent is to provide a design that is effective, feasible, easily maintained, and long-lasting.  

Learn more about this project by visiting the EWB-NOVA website.