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Biogas Project for Bedouin Community Provides Environmental and Health Solutions (video)
Project Places Third in Buckminster Fuller Challenge
NEW YORK, July 9, 2008--Ben-Gurion University graduate students developed environmentally sound methods of waste disposal for the Bedouin community. The project, "Promoting the Use of Biogas in Bedouin Villages and Training Bedouin Women Leaders in Environmental Health," placed third in the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Challenge.
Ilana Meallem who earned her master's degree from BGU's Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies and is now a faculty member at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and Mazen Zuabi, a graduate student in the Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology at BGU's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research hope to distribute the digester system to the local community, while training Bedouin women to operate them. In turn, the training will mobilize Bedouin women as environmental health activists in their communities.
The project, funded by the Rosenzweig-Coopersmith Foundation, a longtime BGU supporter, has been adopted by the University's Center for Women's Health Studies and Promotion because it is the women who are responsible for waste management, "therefore becoming exposed to environmental hazards that lead to chronic health problems," according to Professor Julie Cwikel, the Center's director.
View movie about the Bedouin biogas project
(5 minutes and 45 seconds).
American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision, creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. With some 20,000 students on campuses in Beer-Sheva, Sede Boqer and Eilat in Israel’s southern desert, BGU is a university with a conscience, where the highest academic standards are integrated with community involvement, committed to sustainable development of the Negev.
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Media Contact: |
Andrew Lavin |
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