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Message from the Calgary City Chapter PresidentWelcome, everyone, to this 2011-2012 EWB year!  Thank you for your continued support of Engineers Without Borders and the Calgary City Chapter.  This year’s focus concerns turning potential into opportunity.  It will be filled with engaging discussions; the diffusion of global engineering leaders throughout our city; the development of solid corporate partnerships through corporate and employee engagement in diversified EWB programs; and the growth of our overseas sending program.  

In addition, I am looking forward to injecting more fun into the learning and development of the organization in Calgary.  Having been involved with EWB for 7 years, I can see the untapped potential of Calgary engineers, engineering firms, and local industry to be major contributors to the incredible movement that EWB has inspired and constructed in the last 10 years.  As leaders of the Canadian engineering profession, engineers situated in Calgary can and should be leaders in creating positive change for those less fortunate. With the Calgary City Chapter, let us make our city a landmark for positive change.  

I look forward to working and meeting with all of you throughout the upcoming year.

Sincerely,

Angela Alambets

EWB Calgary City Chapter President 2011-2012

EWB Calgary City ChapterCalgary Place, RPO Box 20364

Calgary, AB T2P 4J4http://calgary.ewb.ca

e: calgary@ewb.ca

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Kevin Hanson, Malawi

Kevin Hanson is an EWB Professional Fellow currently working in Malawi as part of the Malawi Water and Sanitation sector team. As a Professional Fellow (PF), his role involves following up on the most promising work that Junior Fellows (JF's) have completed and making a best effort in implementing their recommendations and findings.

As its name suggests, the Malawi Water and Sanitation team has two relatively separate components. Kevin's work concerns the Water portion of this team, whose overall goal is to increase the number of Malawians who have continuous and reliable access to clean and safe drinking water. This is achieved through collective collaboration with all interested parties in the Malawi water sector. These include local, district, and national governments; other NGO's; and private sector area mechanics. By involving all stakeholders, the team aims to increase the rate of existing borehole functionality, in addition to improving the processes that are used in deciding where, when, and how to drill new water points. This work is important because the lack of clean and safe drinking water is the root cause of many impediments to development, such as an unhealthy (and thus an unproductive) population; the lack of education opportunities (kids are unable to go to school if they are sick); and the diversion of

limited health sector funds and resources towards treating preventable water-borne diseases (e.g. cholera).

Kevin's team is focused on carrying out systems and process changes. Technological advancement is given secondary importance. This is because the technology that is needed to provide a rural population with clean and safe groundwater is well established and does not require innovation, but does require standardization and a consistent process of implementation in order to maximize efficiency and minimize costs. As such, a portion of his team's involvement includes working with District Water Offices to improve the processes they use for siting new boreholes; working with local village water committees to improve their fund-raising processes for borehole repairs; and working with NGO's and the national government to improve their strategies and policies for funding and managing the water sector going forward.

Thus far, Kevin has been working with local area mechanics in the Nkhata Bay district who are freelance private sector mechanics who repair boreholes that have broken and need fixing.

For the past three weeks, Kevin's role has involved working and interacting with some of these mechanics while progressing two initiatives already underway designed to improve their visibility

and self-marketing of their skills to community members.

These two initiatives were painted sign advertisements and business cards. In each of these cases, Kevin discovered that the key success driver is ensuring long term project sustainability. Since EWB volunteers are present on the ground for a relatively short duration, local citizens must take ownership of developed initiatives for any project to be sustained on a long-term basis after volunteers move on. This poses a challenge due to cultural, educational, workload, and capacity issues that are not always easily understood. Engendering local ownership of created initiatives is an aspect of international development that must be carefully considered in any long term success strategy.

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Further details regarding Kevin’s experiences on his overseas fellowship are available on his blog at: http://kevininastrangeland.wordpress.com/.  

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Eric Limacher, ZambiaOne of our Professional Fellows, overseas until December, is Eric Limacher. For the duration of Eric’s placement, he has been partnered with MRI (Maize Research Institute), which is a Zambian producer and seller of hybrid maize seed. As Eric explains in his blog, MRI has spawned a new organizational branch called MRI Agro.

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“Through this arm of the corporation, they are delivering various tools and chemicals to accompany the maize seed they sell. Strategically, the logic is this: by providing all the resources and education needed to grow maize well, farmers who plant their maize will get a good yield, and will have no reason to doubt the quality of their seed. Good for business, good for the farmers… win-win. Enter Engineers Without Borders. EWB is giving our time and insight to the project, but the funding comes entirely from these private companies. Hopefully, if the survey goes well, these players will see the value in market research, and will continue to use it in the future to improve their services to Zambian farmers.”

Precious BottlesPosted on September 12, 2011 on http://ericlimacher.wordpress.com/

Above is a truck bed full of empty glass pop bottles. And why, you ask, is that of interest?

Glass bottles are reused for soft drinks here in Zambia. When you buy a drink at a shop, you either finish it there, or are expected to return the glass bottle to the same shop in the near future. I found that a similar practice takes place in India, and other EWB blogs testify that it exists in Ghana as well.

Retailers of these beverages return the empty bottles to the drink companies when they come to deliver orders of full bottles. For every bottle that is missing from the previous order, the shop owner is charged. I felt terrible when I had to report to one shop owner that I’d lost track of 5 bottles a few weeks back.

Here, this system is in place to conserve precious glass bottles that are relatively expensive to replace. With all our talk of being environmentally friendly, why do we not use such a system in Calgary? After all, it’s reduce, REUSE, then recycle. Is it done elsewhere in Canada? (that’s not rhetorical, I legitimately don’t know)

Could it be implemented at home? I see the following challenges:

• The reused bottles have wear marks where they jostle during transport. This makes it obvious that the bottles are not new. This could be met with a distasteful perception. We are obsessed with newness in Canada, in part due to a concern (obsession?) for cleanliness.

• It is far more convenient to get your drinks in plastic bottles that you toss in a garbage or recycle bin. Recycling that material and reworking it into new products, however, would be far more energy intensive (I believe) then reusing a more durable container such as glass ones.

• The status quo always has inertia, and we’re talking about large beverage companies. How do you get them to buy in? Would they save money somehow? Setting up infrastructure to implement a new way of doing things, while making the system palatable for consumers and producers, would take some serious business savvy.

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On September 9th and 10th, the Calgary Professional Chapter held its inaugural planning session for the 2011-2012 year. This event provided an inviting environment for members to gather together, share some inspiring visions for the coming year, and re-acquaint ourselves with the reasons we have for volunteering with EWB. It was an opportune time for learning – both about our constantly evolving mission statement, and how our Chapter work fits into the larger picture of the national EWB organization. There was a diversified group this year - it was encouraging to see new members working alongside chapter veterans.

Pertaining to this retreat, we believe we achieved our goal: to provide attendees with a solid understanding of the Chapter’s focus for the upcoming year, while assembling our 2011-2012 schedule, which consists of fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and corporate engagement and lunch and learn events. We extend our appreciation to all attendees for their contributions.

Working on a Vision – The Calgary Executive Chapter Retreat

For the 2011 - 2012 EWB Year, our Member Learning Development Discussions will be scheduled for the 2nd Thursday of each Month, where possible.

To keep up to date our events visit our updated website: http://calgary.ewb.ca or follow us on Twitter: ewbcalgaryFacebook: Calgary City Chapter

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Engineers Without Borders Canada is a movement of 50,000 professional engineers, students, overseas volunteer staff, and supporters across Canada. They believe that the next generation of rural Africans should have the same opportunities to improve their lives, that we have right here at home. To help make this a reality, members and volunteers apply all the creativity, technical skills and problem-solving approach for which engineers are known.

Their committed and innovative volunteers work in partnership with government, local organizations and communities – combining their knowledge and experience to find unique solutions and devise innovative ways to apply them to create lasting change across Africa and Canada.

The Calgary City Chapter is involved in many events, from corporate workplace outreach programs to member learning initiatives. Want to get involved? Volunteers for Engineers Without Borders are not limited to professional engineers but include all professions with a foundation of humility, passion, critical thinking, adaptability, flexibility, awareness of issues and awareness of self.

To subscribe to our mailing list: visit my.ewb.caclick on the the Green Sign Upand select “Calgary Professional Chapter”