Mauricia Nambataya - Civil Engineering Update

3 August 2017Civil Engineering Update - Mauricia Nambatya

On Thursday 3rd August Mauricia Nambatya from Uganda was welcomed back to our club after 2 years to speak about her work.  When she first came she was studying for an M Phil in Engineering for Sustainability at Cambridge and she recently returned to England to receive her Master’s degree and an Ashden international award for sustainability for the Haileybury Youth Trust

Mauricia’s enthusiasm shone through as she spoke about her job as Manager of The Haileybury Youth Trust.  This trust is involved in educating young people in Uganda in social enterprise and building sustainable constructions such as housing and schools.

Mauricia told us that Uganda has the fastest growing population in the World (it doubled in the last 25 years) and its natural resources are shrinking rapidly. Uganda has 80% of its population under 30 years of age. They now have one million refugees and affordable housing is urgently needed and also water tanks and schools. Fired bricks have been used for building but this has meant that huge areas of forest have been demolished to bake these bricks which also create CO2 emissions.  The charity Mauricia works for have researched the use of making compressed interlocking earth bricks to save the environment. These bricks are made from the surrounding earth, with a small 7% cement added to improve strength, and there are less transport costs. The trust are employing school leavers to train them in construction and therefore providing these young people with skills and work and education in helping the future of their country. To date the HYT charity have constructed 139 buildings, trained 100 unemployed youths and improved the lives of 40,000 people.

She also manages her time to volunteer for an organisation called ‘Dreams of Tropical Youth (DROTY), working with young people to improve their education and self confidence in the skills they have.

We were all impressed with Mauricia’s enthusiasm to build a better future for the country and congratulated her on a very informative talk, the trusts international award and her rising career.                                                            MBC