Las Vegas NowLas Vegans Help African Orphans

Las Vegans Help African Orphans

The Las Vegas Chapter of Engineers Without Borders is celebrating a major success. They have completed their first project to bring a working latrine and sink to an orphanage in Ghana.

Eyewitness News has been following the groups progress through UNLV senior Jessica Walters who spent the past two weeks in Ghana and has been documenting the project. Walters is now home and sharing what she calls a life changing experience.

"The unconditional love and the yearning for them to be held and be close to you I think that is what made it so touching and also so heartbreaking," said Walters.

More than a 100 little faces watched intently as the team of engineers who traveled half-way around the world built them a sanitary bathroom. Walters caught it all on camera and shared the images on her blog.

"Almost immediately we went out to the old latrine and it was horrible. The pictures don't do it justice. The old one was just crooked logs over a pit and filled with feces. Some kids had even fallen in and gotten sick."

It's just one example of the poverty but there were many more.

"Mud huts that were crumbling. Everything was crumbling and most of it was dirt roads and very muddy."

It only made her -- and the engineers -- more determined to make life a little easier for these kids.

A pick axe was my new best friend and I have never used a pick axe before. You are right on the equator the sun is beating down on you and you are taking this pick axe and you are digging it right into the solid ground."

It was back-breaking work for people they just barely met.

"There are two little boys that broke my heart as soon as I got there. Their names were Daniel and David. Both of them were a lot more melancholy with the kids just because they had been there the least amount of time with they still weren't adjusted," she said.

But Jessica knows they will adjust a little easier now, with a cleaner place to call home.

"Oh my gosh, to know that another child will not fall into that pit. How excited they were and to see them washing their hands and watching the older kids teach the younger kids how to wash their hands correctly it was great. It was so worth it."

While that is one success story, the kids still need an actual building with rooms and beds. The Las Vegas Chapter of Engineers Without Borders hopes to raise enough in donations to go back and build them that home.