Ideas

Infrastructure Funding

Bridges to Prosperity Changes Lives One Village at a Time

None of the projects the writer has visited has had a greater impact on the community

By Janice L. Tuchman

Road to Siquipampa — I traveled to Bolivia with the nonprofit group, Bridges to Prosperity. I joined their board last year, and this was my first international board meeting. B2P helps isolated communities build footbridges across impassable rivers to reach schools, health care, clean water and jobs. We headed to the remote village of Siquipampa following switchback after switchback to a place where the vans could cross the river and climb up again.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Llamas — About 15 board members and staff passed this herd of llamas as we drove to the opening ceremonies of a new bridge.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Siquipampa, Bolivia — When we stepped out of the vans we saw the bridge—just a speck in the distance below–and the dusty path we would climb down to reach it. The village of Siquipampa is on the mountainside beyond the bridge. What was a rippling stream on the June afternoon of our visit turns into a raging river during the rainy season from November to March.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Hiking down — What made the descent to the village more challenging was that the site is at an elevation of about 11,500 ft and the return was a breath-gasping climb back up.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Villagers Entertain — As soon as we got out of the vans we heard the sounds of drums and zampoña, reedy instruments played by villagers to welcome us. The opening ceremonies involved more music and dancing!

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

B2P Founder Entertains — B2P Ken Frantz, B2P founder and board member, entertained village children, other board members and staff with his impression of animal sounds.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Ceremonial arch — The 75-meter-long suspended bridge, decked out for the opening ceremony, adapts a standard B2P design. Two big challenges in construction was a delay in materials delivery caused by heavy rain and rockslides and the rock at the bridge site that required excavating with dynamite—very carefully!

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

The Team — Attendees from Bridges to Prosperity included (l-r) Lou Stover, board member; Elie Homsi, board chair and a senior vice president in the Denver office of Parsons; Avery Bang, B2P CEO; Ken Frantz, founder and board member; and Barret Wellemeyer, Bolivia country manager.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Llama-potato feast — Villagers shared a hearty meal of new potatoes, dark dried potatoes and roasted salted meat. Differing stories circulated that the meat was either llama or mutton—but whichever, it was delicious! My guess was mutton because of the many sheep grazing on the impossibly steep slopes around the village.

*PHOTO: JANICE L. TUCHMAN / ENR*

Ready to Climb Back Up — The red and white specks on the top of the mountain behind me were the vans parked on the road above. Village children scampered around us as we climbed, but I had to stop frequently to get enough air to continue at that high altitude. Fernando Luca, who has lived in the village his whole life, told me, “We need this bridge because we need to cross to work the fields. Weeks can go by without anyone being able to cross, and people have died trying…We’re going to use it all the time.”

*Photo courtesy of B2P*

Just my luck that the first international board meeting I attended for Bridges to Prosperity included the opening ceremonies of the Siquipampa pedestrian bridge at 11,500 ft in the Central Cordillera Tunari mountains of Bolivia. Attending involved a challenging descent down a dirt path with a 700-ft vertical drop—and the breath-gasping climb back out. The bridges are always remote but rarely so high.

The 600 village residents are periodically entirely cut off from their school and the outside world. What was a rippling stream on the June afternoon of my visit turns into a raging river during the rainy season from November to March.

Board members drove in two vans for four hours into the mountains from Cochabamba—a city of about 600,000 people in central Bolivia and also the name of one of Bolivia’s departments. We turned onto a bumpy dirt road that switchbacked into a valley, where the vans could cross the river, and back up the other side. When we finally pulled over, we could hear music from zampoña, reedy instruments played by villagers welcoming us far down in the valley. The new bridge was a speck at the bottom of the mountainside.

After a dusty climb, we were greeted with fruit drinks, more music and dancing. The opening ceremonies involved speeches and sprinkling our heads with confetti. To christen the bridge, pottery flasks filled with local moonshine were smashed on the deck! After joining the parade across the bridge and back again, we were served heaping plates of boiled new potatoes, dark dried potatoes and hunks of flavorful, bone-in salted roasted meat.

Fernando Luca, a 71-year-old man who has lived in the village his whole life, said, “We need this bridge because we need to cross to work the fields. Weeks can go by without anyone being able to cross, and people have died trying. We have demanded a bridge like this! We are going to use it all the time.” Luca spoke only Quechua, but we found a B2P staffer who spoke both Quechua and English to translate for me.

After the hike back up the mountain, I interviewed Barret Wellemeyer, Bolivia program manager for B2P, in the van back to Cochabamba. He said B2P first made contact with the alcalde (mayor) of Tacopaya, a municipality in the department of Cochabamba, which is responsible for infrastructure. The mayor “introduced us to Siquipampa, where the people had been asking for a bridge and were willing to work,” Wellemeyer said. “The bridge was technically feasible, and it would have a great social impact.” The team had the early challenge of a big rain event. There were rockfalls everywhere. It was about two months before they could get steel, wood and concrete to the site.

The 75-meter Siquipampa bridge adapts a standard B2P suspended-bridge design. The big technical challenge was the exploratory excavation for rock. Construction had started before “we figured out how hard that rock was and how difficult it would be to excavate. We were able to use dynamite … with a lot of extra safety precautions,” Wellemeyer said.

The community contributed unskilled labor for the bridge construction as well as housing and meals for the B2P staff members. The Tacopaya municipality provided local materials and transport. B2P provides engineering, skilled labor, recycled cables that still meet the factor of safety needed for a pedestrian bridge and drop-forged clamps.

Incomes Increase

Back in Cochabamba, B2P board members learned about the work of Wyatt Brooks and Kevin Donovan, two University of Notre Dame professors who found that, in the communities in which B2P constructs footbridges, households experienced a market income increase of 32%. Their independently funded research compared data from 15 rural villages—six of which received a footbridge and nine that did not.

The B2P Industry Program, which helps teams of construction professionals to fund and build bridges, is “a major driver for our financial growth,” reported B2P CEO Avery Bang. In 2016, 24 firms will have traveled to build bridges, and there is an 18-month pipeline to get a team on site. B2P also launched a Bridges to Properity Charitable Trust, incorporated in the U.K., to help British firms get involved.

I have visited infrastructure projects around the world that have been more impressive in size and scope, but I believe none has had greater personal impact on the lives in the community it served.

After serving as editor-in-chief for 20 years, Jan Tuchman was former executive editor, leading content development for Engineering News-Record's wide-ranging series of live and virtual events. These include the Groundbreaking Women in Construction, the Emerging Leaders Forum, FutureTech and infrastructure forums in the New York/New Jersey region and Los Angeles. Tuchman is the 2023-24 chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers Industry Leaders Council, she is a member of the Columbia University Center for Infrastructure, Facilities and Public Spaces, and she is active in The Moles, a heavy construction leadership organization. Her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism are from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Industry honors include the Ted C. Kennedy Award from the National Academy of Construction and the service and supply award from the Beavers. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and enjoys singing in the Brooklyn Community Chorus.

Post a comment to this article

Enhancing Collaboration and Surpassing Traditional Design-Build Methods with Progressive Design-Build

Earn: 1 PDH; 1 AIA LU/Elective; 0.1 IACET CEU

Progressive Design-Build is reshaping large infrastructure projects by addressing key issues with the traditional Design-Build approach. We'll explore how PDB fosters collaboration between owners, design-builders, and design teams to develop a well-defined scope and budget, plus minimizes cost overruns and reduces liability claims.