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Engineers Without BordersTM – USA (EWB-USA) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to help developing areas worldwide with their engineering needs, while involving and training a new kind of internationally responsible engineering student. EWB–USA projects involve the design and construction of water, waste-water, sanitation, energy, and shelter systems. These projects are initiated by, and completed with, contributions from the host community, which is trained to operate the systems without external assistance. In this way, EWB-USA ensures that its projects are appropriate and self-sustaining. The projects are conducted by groups of students under the supervision of faculty and professional engineers from partnering engineering firms.
By involving students in every step of the EWB–USA process, the program maximizes their learning and awareness of the social, economic, environmental, political, ethical, and cultural impacts of engineering projects. During academic year 2001-2002, about 32 students actively participated in international engineering projects sponsored and managed by EWB-USA. During the summer 2003, more than 50 students from various US schools will be involved in EWB-USA projects in Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Thailand, Haiti, Belize, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Peru.
EWB-USA’s outward vision is of a world where all people have access to adequate sanitation, safe drinking water, and the resources to meet their other self-identified engineering and economic development needs.
EWB-USA’s initial inward vision is as a project coordination, funding, supervision and documentation organization that links university engineering schools with project opportunities, primarily in the developing world. In the future EWB anticipates both professional and institutional partners and the ability to link this cadre of human capacity into the broad range of development programs.
The objective of all these activities is not only to contribute to new and ongoing development projects in an effective way, but to expand the dimensions of experience for emerging and practicing engineers. It is our vision that this is a primary path to achieving a more sustainable world, without suffering the consequences of engineering projects that are socially, culturally, or economically inappropriate.
Engineers have a central role in building a sustainable future; in fact, they have an obligation to provide leadership in this direction.
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