Engineers Without Borders (Canada)

for similar organizations worldwide.)

Engineers Without Borders was founded in 2000 by George Roter and Parker Mitchell, engineering graduates from the University of Waterloo. It is a registered Canadian Charity.

Its mission is "to promote human development through access to technology". Importantly, EWB works overseas (primarily in sub-Saharan Africa) with local NGOs and, occasionally, government departments (for example, the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture) to help increase access to technology at the local level. The focus is on access to technology largely through local capacity-building rather than on technologies themselves. In Canada, EWB Canada engages in numerous educational and public outreach activities in Canada including educating high school students about international development issues via the Highschool Outreach program, enhancing curricula at some universities by developing assignments or courses for engineering students, and informing the Canadian public on global development issues. EWB Canada also works to lobby the Canadian government to change policies and laws concerning international development issues, through letter writing and meeting with politicians among other means. Unknown to many, EWB Canada played a large role in the Canadian Live 8 concert in 2005 and has won numerous awards both internationally and nationally.

EWB Canada is a young, rapidly growing student-driven organization based on university chapters across Canada, with a national office in Toronto to support the university chapters and to co-ordinate and train overseas volunteers. As of February 2007 there are 26 university chapters, 6 professional chapters and more than 25,000 members nationwide. Paid staff is kept to a minimum in the organization, in order to run the organization as efficiently as possible; all positions outside the national office are volunteer. The members are primarily engineering students, although a number of non-engineering students are active members and have volunteered overseas. There is an annual EWB Canada national conference every year in late January which is currently the largest international development conference in Canada. Its location varies from year to year depending on the chapter hosting it.

Chapters are able to send overseas volunteers for four month work terms through the Junior Fellowship Program. Short term volunteers, or Junior Fellows, are student members returning to their chapter following their time overseas. Four months is considered a short term placement and the greatest impact is the overseas volunteers' contributions upon their return to their chapter in Canada - they return with a wide range of experiences and lessons that can be passed on to other members and the public at large.

Long term overseas volunteers go on one to three year placements. These are usually, but not exclusively, students who have graduated and were involved with an EWB Canada university chapter. Knowledge and experience in international development, leadership skills and open-mindedness are considered much more important than just technical skills. The goal of these placements are not to alleviate poverty alone, but also to build capacity among the local non-governmental organization partners and community at large. For this reason all overseas projects are done in collaboration with a local NGO partner who is encouraged to take ownership of various projects and ultimately have no need EWB Canada's help and input.

EWB Canada has several prominent people on its advisory board, including James Orbinski: Past President of Médecins Sans Frontières, His Excellency John Ralston Saul: Novelist and essayist, and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr: Director, Human Development Report, UNDP.

External links

* [http://www.ewb.ca Engineers Without Borders - Official Site]