Real-life Role Models: Global generosity

UNM professor Michael Campana helps his students learn about water resources and helps Hondurans in isolated villages get clean water

By Megan Arredondo
Tribune Reporter
August 15, 2005

For the past five years, Michael Campana has been "roughing it" with graduate students from the University of New Mexico in the jungles of Honduras.

Campana is a professor of hydrogeology in the department of earth and planetary sciences and has been with the university for 16 years.

In the summer of 2001, he gathered about a dozen students and traveled to a remote village in Honduras near the Guatemalan border. The goal was to install a water system.

"We lived in the village and worked side by side with the villagers for about three weeks," Campana said.

The Water Resources Program was such a success that Campana, now its director, has returned each summer with students. Each year they spend three weeks helping install water systems at a designated village.

HOW TO HELP UNM Water Resources Program Make a check out to the UNM Foundation, marking Fund 1453 on the memo line. Send the check to: Michael Campana Water Resources Program MSC05 3110 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 Ann Campana Judge Foundation Visit www.acjfoundation.org to donate by credit card or make a check out to The Ann Campana Judge Foundation and send it to: ACJ Foundation P.O. Box 4298 Albuquerque, NM 87196-4298.

But the program carries a $20,000 price tag that includes travel expenses, vaccinations and some supplies.

The U.S. Agency for International Development supplies the Honduran Government with essential supplies such as piping for the water system. The program must pay for items such as cement, valves and fittings.

Each year, Campana usually raises enough money to have a surplus.

Right now, he has about $3,000 or $4,000 for next summer, but private donors have indicated they can't donate this year, he said.

After years of soliciting from the same donors, Campana is unsure whether he'll gather enough money to continue the effort next summer.

"We need to get more substantial funding," said Campana, who often opens his own pocketbook to keep the program alive.

The idea for the project came after Campana traveled to Honduras in January 2001 while volunteering for an organization called Lifewater International.

After visiting a site, Campana was so impressed that he mentioned that he would love to bring his students to help.

He returned to UNM and raised $20,000, through grants and donations, for students to visit as part of graduate studies that summer.

"I didn't know what to expect, but it worked out well," he said. "The students have been amazing."

With an average of about 350 people per village and because the group is there for a limited time, the water system is usually about 50 percent complete when they leave, Campana said.

Villagers will continue on with the project until its completion, he said.

One of Campana's masters students is in Honduras assessing all of the program's sites, he said.

"I'm very curious to see how they turned out," Campana said. "The key thing is that we wanted them to be sustainable."

This June, the group completed about 75 percent of the system because the village was smaller than average.

"We're doing something to better the world, at least for those 300 or 400 people," he said.

Campana finds fulfillment in the appreciation from villagers. He recalls one man asking him why he was helping the village.

"I hope you would do the same for me," Campana responded.

Campana is no stranger to generosity.

In 2002, he began the Ann Campana Judge Foundation, which supports water, health and sanitation efforts in developing countries.

The foundation was named after his sister, a passenger on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

"I had always wanted to start a foundation," Campana said. "Her death was like a kick in the rear end. It was a good way to honor her."

Since its inception, the foundation has funded 11 projects, ranging from $3,000 to $5,000.

"It's a very gratifying experience to give money away," he said.

The Water Resources Program is gratifying, too, and Campana wants to make sure it does not die due to lack of money.

This year, Campana asked students to write funding proposals instead of reports.

The students' proposals would be used as the basis for a larger proposal that would be turned into a foundation that could help fund the program, Campana said.

"Not only is it personally satisfying, but it's satisfying for the students as well," Campana said.

"There's plenty of work to be done," Campana said. "I'll continue this as long as I'm able to."

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