Engineers Without Borders
Sandy Nichols
introduced Eric Kelley & Daniel Silveira, Civil Engineering students at Cal Poly and representing Engineers Without Borders.
The organization, founded in 2000 at University of Colorado, gives engineering students an opportunity for travel and to apply their skills to helping others in remote areas of the world. It is a non profit group that partners with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through implementation of environmentally and economically sustainable engineering projects. Currently there are 200 chapters responsible for 170 projects in 71 countries. Cal Poly has 50 members in their chapter.
In a remote village of 3000 in Thailand inhabited primarily by ethnic Chinese and hill people, an engineering team is working on a school dormitory, water filtering system and a sewer collection system. A Nicaragua team is focusing on a refugee camp inhabited mostly by women and children who have, among other things, social and health issues. They hope to develop a health clinic emphasizing gynecological services, child health and surgery. A third project is headed by a Southeast Asia team. In Laos they are working on building shelters out of "lego" masonry bricks, using bamboo sticks for rebars; compost toilets and a local Building Code that will utilize materials available in the area. For further information/donations:
www.ewb.calpoly.edu
.