Abstract:

Guayaquil has been characterized not only for being the “Commercial Capital of Ecuador”, but also for being a city with a tendency to fires. According to statistics of Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos, approximately 93% of fires have their origin in short circuits and combustion of flammable materials, generating economic and human losses. Vulnerability to fire-related hazards increases mainly in the marginal urban and rural areas of Guayaquil due to both the infrastructure of the houses and the inadequate electrical installations made by persons who do not have any technical education.

Being then prevention the most efficient way to avoid the fire risks, the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL (acronym in spanish) in partnership with Holcim Ecuador, a cement production company, designed and implemented a training plan for the communities of Chongon, a neighboring rural area. This training plan aims to develop electrical basic skills in households heads to prevent fires related to electrical risks, and this is part of the Corporate Social Responsibility of Holcim and the technical support that ESPOL brings to socioeconomically vulnerable communities through students practices.

To accomplish this, in a first stage, a diagnosis was made by Holcim to detect the main problems presented in homes due to electrical installations. With this diagnostic, theoretical and practical workshops were designed to be applied in related field work. These workshops were supervised by 4 professors and instructed by 9 students of the Electronic and Automation Engineering career. The theoretical workshops took place in Holcim Ecuador Foundation’s facilities called “Centro de Educación para todos”. The implementation of appropriate electric installation was made in 17 houses of a total of 71 beneficiaries. Applying this knowledge, has helped the beneficiaries to acquire skills in residential and industrial electrical installations and also created awareness in electrical risks prevention. Also, this training plan generated a potential source of income for their families, since that more than 70% of the beneficiaries did not realize any economic activity. The low level of education can be one of the probable causes of the high unemployment rate in this area since it was evidenced that more than 80% had secondary education, and less than 11% had primary education.

On the other hand, undergraduate students have indicated that this interaction with the community has helped them to develop soft skills such as teamwork, ethic, social responsibility and leadership. As important as all of the above, the application of know-how has helped to achieve career learning outcomes: ability to design a system, component or process under realistic constraints, and ability to identify, formulate and solve engineering problems.

In this way, thanks to implementing strategic alliance between university and the private company is possible to develop skills in these vulnerable communities, which contributes to achieve the objectives of sustainable development. This project reaches to fulfill different beneficial purposes for all. University gets to accomplish the professional and the integral profile of the students. Private company fulfills its goal of corporate social responsibility. And the community is benefited with new knowledge and some adequate housing with greater security to risks electrical installations.

Keywords:

Prevent fires, electrical risk, electrical skills, corporate social responsibility, student practices, university and private company.