While sand and sun were not in short supply for Manny Hernandez, Spring Break was anything but a vacation.

As a member of Potters for Peace, a charity organization dedicated to aiding underdeveloped areas through ceramic production, Hernandez, an associate professor at NIU’s School of Art, spent a week in the Baghdad region helping local potters develop a low-cost water filtration system.

The trip was sponsored by the Agency for Technical Cooperation, an international relief agency.

Water in Iraq was contaminated to the point where it was no longer safe to drink, Hernandez said. The goal of the visit was to find a low-cost, low-tech method to develop a dependable ceramic filtration system.

Obstacles included a lack of electricity, a lack of filter-making materials and inexperienced potters, he said.

“You have to use what’s available,” Hernandez said.

The situation was not new to Hernandez. In 1998, he helped local potters in Honduras and Nicaragua recover from devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.

While in Iraq, Hernandez developed molds and presses that functioned without electricity, as well as a method to use rice husks to fire up kilns.

Training local potters was an especially important aspect, Hernandez said, as a transfer of technical skills can help create a microindustry that can sustain itself long after outside help has left.

“You’ve taught somebody to do something, and they make money,” he said.

Working in Iraq was not the easiest of situations, Hernandez said.

After arriving in Ahman, Jordan, Hernandez paid a taxi to give him and a professor from Pennsylvania’s Slippery Rock University who was also working for Potters for Peace a 10-hour ride into Baghdad. Planes were unavailable because of restricted airspace conditions.

Hernandez said he didn’t realize the danger of the area until he returned stateside, where he learned insurgents had begun targeting non-government organizations. Two days after he left the area, four Baptist missionaries were gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Mosul.

“You could see the military presence,” Hernandez said. “I saw a lot of bombed-out areas in Baghdad.”

For more information about Potters for Peace, visit www.potpaz.org.