Engineers Without Borders

From the 11/9/07 ASCE eNewsletter:

ASCE and Engineers Without Borders-USA Announce Formal Partnership

To further their common goals of making the world a better place and improving the engineering profession, ASCE has formalized an affiliation agreement with Engineers Without Borders–USA (EWB-USA). “It’s a natural fit for our two organizations to work together to further each other’s vision and activities to enhance the welfare of humanity,” said ASCE president David G. Mongan, P.E., F.ASCE. With the administrative and financial support provided by ASCE in the new agreement—up to $500,000—EWB-USA will be able to expand their role in educating engineering students and professionals while empowering developing communities through the creation of locally sustainable solutions, and ASCE members will gain a greater opportunity to contribute to and participate in EWB-USA projects and programs.


» To join EWB at ASCE's exclusive 40 percent discount rate, visit www.asce.org/renewal, and click the EWB box.
» To learn more about EWB-USA, click here.

 

In February 2005, ASCE and Engineers Without Borders - USA signed a Memorandum of Understanding.  Attendees of the Zone III Leadership Conference in St. Louis were lucky enough to witness this event and hear a presentation about Engineers Without Borders. 

The mission of Engineers Without Borders - USA is to "partner with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through implementation of environmentally and economically sustainable engineering project, while developing internationally responsible engineering students."  EWB-USA partners engineering students and professionals on projects in developing countries, hoping to maximize the students' learning and awareness of social, economic, environmental, political, ethical, and cultural impacts of their projects.  A table of different ways to get involved, along with the time commitment estimate for each can be found here.   

To learn more about Engineers Without Borders, check out their US website: www.ewb-usa.org.  In addition, a new section is being formed for the Great Plains States.  Visit the Great Plains Section website. 

 

From the CYM Newsletter - Issue 54:

Partnership Established between ASCE and Engineers Without Borders USA

On February 26th ASCE President William Henry and Executive Director Natale signed a Memorandum of Understanding with EWBUSA.  EWB is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life. EWB creates simple, affordable, and sustainable engineering solutions to the design and construction of water, wastewater, sanitation, energy, and shelter systems in the developing world.

Through its programs, EWB-USA provides a hands-on opportunity for engineering students to work on international projects under the supervision of professional engineer mentors.

Projects are initiated by and completed with citizens in the host community who are trained to maintain the systems without additional external assistance. In this way, EWB-USA ensures that its projects are appropriate and self-sustaining. The projects are usually low cost and high impact.

Where do ASCE members come in? Basic needs of developing countries are very often civil engineering in nature. The possible roles of ASCE practitioners include:

• Becoming an ASCE technical reviewer, providing engineering review of proposed EWB systems,

• Providing mentoring or training to students chapters of EWB-USA, • Becoming part of the project team which does the practical engineering with students in the months before the team leaves for on site implementation of the project,

• Becoming part of the team that volunteers to travel to the site, and plans, and constructs the project with the students and the villagers

• Raising funds to sponsor an EWBUSA project.

If you would like more information about EWB or would like to volunteer as an ASCE member, please contact Nancy Berson at (800) 548-ASCE or nberson@asce.org or Amy Smith at ewb@ermail.asce.org.

 

 

(Some information on this page obtained from www.ewb-usa.org)