S e p t e m b e r2 0 1 1

I S S U E

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WithoutBorders

this issue

An Introduction to EWB P.1

Our Members’ Work in Africa P.2

The Global Engineer P.3

The Issue of Global Poverty P.4

EWB’s Political Advocacy P.5Building a World of Opportunity

Engineers Without Borders Windsor

uwindsor.ewb.ca | facebook: EWB Windsor Chapter | twitter: ewbwindsor

September EventsMember Learning Sessions September 14th— JF Presentation

Monthly Contest

Building a World of Opportunity

WithoutBorders

A presentation by our returning junior fellowsTania Sanchez and Bill Fuerth on their experiencein Ghana (see p. 2).

September 29th—“End of Poverty?”

General members will be eligible to win a fabulous andunique prize courtesy of Ten Thousands Villages.

Come to both this month’s member learning sessions,where handouts will be given out, and bring them to thegeneral member meeting to be awarded the a fair-tradeprize made by a third world citizen!

Fundraisers Watch out for our

awesome club nights!

A screening of the documentary “End of Pov-erty” (review on p. 3) and discussion.

General Member Meeting September 30th, everyone is welcome

Check our website or Facebook page forupdates!

We want your feedback! Tell us what you liked or how we canimprove our newsletter

Contribute an article on any subject related to EWB Send us any questions

E-mail us: ewbwindsor.newsletter@gmail.com

Check out the online version at uwindsor.ewb.ca/

WithoutBorders

Building a World of Opportunity P. 1

Engineers Without Borders is a move-ment of professional engineers,students, overseas volunteer staff,and supporters across Canada. To-

gether, we are almost 50,000 strong. We be-lieve that the next generation of rural Africansshould have the same opportunities to im-prove their lives, that we have right here athome.

To help make this a reality, our mem-bers and volunteers apply all the creativity,technical skills and problem-solving approachfor which engineers are known. Of course,not anyone can be a creative problem solverand anybody can join EWB. EWB invests in itsmembers in order to help them grow aschange leaders. These are people who can

drive change themselves and empower othersto do so themselves. These are people whocan courageously commit to solving the mostimportant problems. It is this massive net-work of change leaders, working inside andoutside the framework of EWB, that defineEWB as a movement.

As an organization, EWB is just ascommitted to being an innovative changeleader. EWB does not subscribe to followingdevelopment strategies that have not beeneffective in eradicating extreme poverty. EWBas an organization is open to new ideas, andself-critical to the point of publishing failurereports depicting failed projects.

In Africa, our committed and innova-tive volunteers work in partnership with local

organizations and communities – combiningour knowledge and experience to find uniquesolutions and devise innovative ways to applythem. Our work is focused on enabling ruralAfricans the opportunity to access clean wa-ter, generate an income from humble farms,and access critical infrastructure and services.

At home, EWB is leveraging our net-work of 34 professional and student chaptersto create lasting change across Canada. Weengage Canadians, our government, compa-nies, and universities on a widespread scale, tobuild their connections to Africa and makechoices that better promote and contribute tohuman development.

Injustice must be confronted, and dignity promoted: We believe that change happens when ordinary people stand up to the injustices they see inthe world, and fight for the dignity of human beings who they may have never met before, because they are human beings.

“What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with calamity for all.” - Kofi Annan

Exceptional people, working together, catalyzing systemic change: We believe that by enabling leaders in multiple countries, organizations androles, we will be able to amplify the impact of any individual.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

Human development is messy, simple solutions are rare: We believe that the complexity of human development pushes us to work through am-biguity, balancing multiple tensions simultaneously and knowing that attribution will be difficult, if not impossible. This level of complexity re-quires more thought, energy, and commitment.

“A wide range of factors come together to make the whole more than the sum of its parts, enhancing the ability of local institutions to manageinternal dilemmas and respond to shifts in the external environment, both of which are changing continuously.” – Michael Edwards

Socially minded engineers bring great value: We believe in an engineering profession that is better aware of its potential for positive impact onthe world, and is better equipped to bring about that change.

“In today’s interconnected and most complicated world, we need to confirm the raison d’etre of the engineering profession, which is to adapt scienceto the benefit of all Humankind.” - Kamel Ayadi

EWB EasternRetreat 2011

EWB founderand CEO GeorgeRoter

What is EWB?

Our Beliefs

WithoutBorders

Building a World of Opportunity P. 2

EWB’s Junior Fellowship Program includes a four month volunteer placement overseas. This program is open to EWB chaptermembers who will be returning to their chapter for at least one year following their summer abroad. While the four month plac e-ment overseas is the highlight for many, the program also includes the completion of learning modules prior to going overseas , aweek-long pre-departure training, and a commitment to sharing their experiences and lessons learned with their community andchapter upon their return. EWB Windsor has sent two JFs to Ghana this summer.

“¡Hola!

My name is Tania Sanchez and I am athird year university student at theUniversity of Windsor. I major in Inter-national Relations and DevelopmentStudies and I am also doing a minor inLatin American studies which mightforce me to stay an extra semester inschool which is totally fine because Ilove school and I love my minor! I have been actively involved with myEWB chapter since 2010 and my first role in my chapter was VP MemberLearning. I first came to learn about EWB from a club day way back in2008 at my university. The EWB members were hammering a nail into apiece of wood and each nail represented something about poverty. Ithought it was a really interactive way to get the student’s attention and Iparticipated and even signed up on the mailing list. However, I didn’t getinvolved until two years later when I finally decided I wanted to be moreinvolved in issues that were important to me (and when I realized that youdidn’t have to be an engineer to actually join the group). In 2010, I decidedto apply for the JF position because I wanted to see for myself how EWBwas carrying out its work in Africa and how it differed from the missionwork that I previously had been involved in in Latin America with thechurch. I also wanted to gain a better understanding of what sustainabledevelopment work consisted of and how EWB’s African Programs werebeing a part of it.

Now I am in Tamale, Ghana seeing firsthand how EWB is trying to buildcapacity for developmental sustainability! My placement is with the Minis-try of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) of the Metropolitan Agriculture Devel-opment Unit (MADU) or in other words, MoFA at the district level. Since2008, EWB has been implementing and scaling up the Agriculture As aBusiness (AAB) strategy in districts across the northern and eastern re-gions in Ghana. The goal is to help farmers start looking at farming as abusiness rather than relying on subsistence farming. More directly, AAB isaimed to improve and build the capacity of Agricultural Extension Agents(AEAs) by training them on AAB so they can serve their famers bet-ter. AEAs are MoFAs direct line to farmers so by building them up, EWBcan help farmers raise their standards of living. In a nut shell, EWB is tryingto help farmers make money.”

—Tania’s blog post, A Little About Me and My Purpose inGhana This Summer, June 5, 2011

“Hello everybody out there,

So as promised this post will be dedicat-ed entirely to my line of work here inGhana, as it's come to my attention thatwhat I'm doing here might not be tooclear to everyone back home!

I'll start off by defining my overall posi-tion here in Ghana. I like to consider

myself an Engineers Without Borders consultant for the Ministry of Foodand Agriculture (sounds fancy eh!?). That means that I'm here to performsome service for MoFA, and that particular service is to work on the prob-lems of technology adoption.

Technology adoption can be defined as farmers adopting new practicesand inputs into there current farming system to improve some aspect oftheir farming. The problem is that the technologies that can improve thisfarming are sometimes available and yet farmers aren't ready to use themon their own land. One may ask why this is, and my friend I will tell you the7 observed barriers to technology adoption:

1. Lack of availability of the technology2. Lack of knowledge or understanding of the technology3. Lack of finances4. Increased risk (or perceived risk) in using the technology5. Increased labour demand6. External social factors7. Inappropriate technologies

Some of the barriers may seem obvious and others may not, and it may besurprising which of these pose the largest barriers to the adoption of newtechnologies. Although it's important to note that one of the most com-mon barriers found with rural farming communities is the lack of financesto purchase new technologies, or at least this is the most commonly stat-ed. But I question whether or not this is just talk, as some farmers will an-swer this way in the hopes that by giving me this answer I will providethem with money or resources. This attitude is created from several pro-jects that come to farmers and give them something, creating a mentalitythat the only way to be helped is by receiving money or inputs. Further-more, my work is to search for a way to alleviate some of these barriers totechnology adoption with the over-arching goal of helping farmers pro-duce more goods.”

—Bill’s blog post, The Nature of my Work, July 31, 2011

Tania Sanchez Bill FuerthProgram: Agriculture as a BusinessCountry: Tamale, GhanaTime Period: May-August 2011

Junior Fellows

Program: Technology AdoptionCountry: East Mamprusi, GhanaTime Period: May-August 2011

Building a World of Opportunity

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P. 3

The Global EngineerI f you are an engineering student, you may see some mem-

bers of Engineers Without Borders in your lectures thisyear as a part of our growing global engineering program. What isglobal engineering? This question is really an ongoing challenge tothose involved. Global engineering is not a new type of engineering: itis just a new approach. The concept of global engineering could beboiled down to taking a triple bottom line (social, environmental andfinancial) approach to engineering rather than just financial and obvi-ous public safety concerns which, currently, is too often the case.However, global engineering is not really this simple and EWB has anambitious vision of what engineers can be.

The world today is facing major glaring social hurdles, such asfood security, access to clean water, and extreme global poverty.These problems are not new, and neither are the approaches globalinstitutions have to solve them. But one thing is certain: our past ap-proaches have not met our expectations in bringing about the innova-tive solutions that we want to seesolve these global challenges.

We all know that engi-neers can bring extraordinarychange to the world. This is whymany of us decided to study engi-neering in the first place. We alsoknow the change that engineers canbring to the world isn’t limited tothe bridges, circuit boards, cars anddams that engineers create. Thepower of engineers’ insights intothe root causes of problems andtheir innovation to address thoseproblems should go well beyondjust the technical. It actually has togo well beyond technical because itis quite obvious that the challengesfacing the world today cannot be reduced to a single paradigm orsolved without a multidisciplinary approach. The world is calling for anew type of globally minded problem solver. The world needs moreglobal engineers.

However, our idea of global engineering is not limited to aspecial type of ‘global engineer.’ We believe that all engineers shouldbe global engineers in that we should all be holistic problem solvers.The engineers designing the bridges, circuit boards, cars and damsmust consider social and environmental impacts on par with economicconcerns so as to not perpetuate the problems of modern society.

Is this not expecting a lot from engineers who are alreadyheavily burdened with the challenges presented to them? Should thesocial and environmental concerns not fall to other professions? In

fact, most members of society require this kind of change; however,for the reasons already mentioned, the engineering profession is in agood position to spark this change. Also, a large part of EWB’s visionof the global engineer does involve working more closely with non-engineers who may have additional knowledge and expertise whichcan be used to make more socially and environmentally responsibledecisions.

Engineers must also gain some additional knowledge andskills to be as effective in assessing social and environmental impactsas they are at solving strictly technical problems. To fulfill the triplebottom line standard, engineers need a mindset change and somedifferent skills. This is where EWB comes in. We are working to en-hance the engineering curriculum. We want to raise awareness of theimportance of social and environmental responsibility and trying toget students to actively develop the social thinking skills necessary forthis. These skills include communications, leadership, critical thinking,

systems thinking, and a greater knowledge ofanthropology and ecology.

How about another question: howdoes global engineering differ from traditionalengineering ethics? We will use a quick exam-ple to try clarifying this. The tar sands in Al-berta are an utter environmental catastrophecreated by our addiction to oil. In traditionalethics, would there be a problem with improv-ing the efficiency of the technology used toextract and upgrade oil from bitumen? As-suming the technologies developed are ‘safe’for the public than no, probably not. Howev-er, the concept of the paradox of efficiency(Bjorn Lomborg wrote an interesting articleon this topic) says that using something moreefficiently will lead to greater use rather thandecreased use (there are numerous examples

of this). So, this would mean that creating better technologies for usein the tar sands would likely lead to a greater exploitation of this re-source and possibly slow the development of real solutions to ourenergy problems. Does this mean that a global engineer refuses thistype of work on moral grounds? Not necessarily, however, the globalengineer at least takes these issues into consideration before movingforward.

That is one example and hopefully EWB will be able to enrichthe engineering education with many more. What would be even bet-ter is if students took it upon themselves to consider these things andget actively involved in their education.

—Kyle Eckart, VP Global Engineering

A Global Engineering Partner:WEAO Windsor

The Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) is a member association of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). It is anon-profit technical organization consisting of more than 32,000 water quality professionals worldwide. WEF members include engineers,technologists, operators, and managers. The UWINDSOR-WEAO Student Chapter is a student organization of the WEAO. The purpose of theChapter is to promote student interest in the water environment and to provide an avenue for professional development and exchange ofinformation between Chapter members and members of the WEAO. UWINDSOR-WEAO Student Chapter was founded in 2008, and membersinclude both undergraduate and graduate students interested in water related environmental issues. The chapter organizes various activitiesthroughout the year including water and wastewater treatment plant tour, seminars on water related issues, social events such as movienight, quiz and picnics. In July, the chapter organized a two-in-one event – a tour to the Lakeshore water treatment and a social outing at theLakeshore marina.

—Jyoti Upadhyaya, President, WEAO UWindsor Chapter (PhD Candidate in Environmental Engineering)

WithoutBorders

Building a World of Opportunity P. 4

The vast majority of humanity today is living in poverty, at leastif you use any accurate definition of poverty. And it’s been gettingworse and worse for decades; the number of starving people reachedan all time high just a few years ago (over one billion people: a sixth ofhumanity). When I was younger, I remember always being perplexed bythis, especially the images of extreme poverty in Africa. It was a mysteryhow so many people could still live in such conditions despite beingdecolonized such a long time ago and with the West seeming to give somuch help.

Then I began studying the subject and reached the infuriatingreality; as a political science student, imperialism and economics becamemy main area of interest. The official term of the West’s current relation-ship with the Third World is ‘neo-colonialism,’and it is basically economic imperialism, i.e. mod-ern imperialism. Explaining neo-colonialism andits various aspects to others has always been achallenge for me because it consists of muchmore than just economics and requires an expla-nation of the history behind it (starting with colo-nialism) to understand it adequately. Luckily,around the same time that I became VP MemberLearning for EWB Windsor, I found the first docu-mentary that thoroughly explains neo-colonialism.

End of Poverty is an incredible docu-mentary because it starts at colonization andcompletely explains all aspects of it before goingto neo-colonialism. I always tend to assumethere’s no need to explain what colonization wasto university students, but I’m very commonlywrong. Because of the scale of the issue, themovie quickly becomes a summary of interna-tional relations and economics for the last fivecenturies, as well as going over general theoryon both subjects.

The insightful speakers featured illustrate a very clear pictureof global and domestic economic institutions a kin to slavery. In a veryconscious effort, the West dictated the economics and thereby politicsof newly decolonized countries in order to maintain their historical im-perial relationship. To this day, the West continues to impose economicpolicies on the Third World that are designed to maximize the benefittowards the West’s private sector. Very often, there is almost no basisfor the effectiveness of the chosen policies in fighting poverty, and allthe evidence in the world actually reveals that they prevent improve-ment of living standards and even make them worse.

The most effective aspect of the movie is the examples andinterviews with impoverished families and individuals in the Third World.It was very interesting to hear the views of African villagers on the be-haviour of a Western corporation that has settled on their traditionallands, or simply how content average Third World citizens are with theeconomic system they’ve been forced to accept.

Capitalism and neo-liberalism (capitalism with more strictly

free markets) are at the centre of the economic aspect of the discus-sion. The main criticisms made in the film are that Western countriesthemselves never followed free market policies and became wealthyprecisely for that reason. Even today, the West is not truly capitalist andrefuses to follow the neoliberal policies it claims are the key to develop-ing other countries. Neoliberal policies instead seem to have been cho-sen because they allow the dominance of Western corporations andprevent economic autonomy; this is the basis for neo-colonialism.

On the political side, the speakers, most prominently JohnPerkins, reveal the methods in which the West has attempted to ensureonly obedient regimes exist in the Third World: through the use of assas-sination, coups, military force, installing dictatorships, and most im-

portantly, debt from World Bank loans along withIMF structural adjustment programs. This is wherethe intentions of the West towards the Third Worldbecomes very shockingly clear.

One of the best aspects of the film is thebroad perspective it gives: is our idea of“development” what other societies see as devel-opment? Development according to the Westseems to be Westernization, and the film elaborateson how the West’s economic systems are actuallyvery far from ideal or even sustainable. Simply as-suming one economic system and the culture thatcomes with it is desirable and effective for all coun-tries and peoples in the world clearly seems absurd.

The most cynical view the film provides isthat all this suffering we see in the world today—the virtual enslavement of the majority of humanityinto lives of misery that few oblivious Westernerscould begin to imagine—is completely unnecessaryand in fact deliberately imposed in the same wayslavery is. Gandhi’s famous quote “Poverty is theworst form of violence” comes to mind: killing a

child and allowing a child to die of starvation needlessly could almost beconsidered moral equivalents. The very common figures we hear all thetime of how pennies from wealthy countries could end world hunger, orat least the daily deaths of children from lack of basic resources, makethe moral indignation undeniable. If a small fraction of the effort, re-sources, bureaucracy, etc., that was put in war was put in ending globalpoverty, it’s technically very possible to eradicate it quickly.

I attended EWB’s Western retreat and met with its nationalpolitical advocacy leaders as well as the CEO, and did my best to bringup these issues and this movie to everyone there. I was very successfuland got every member learning executive there to take note of it and atleast consider presenting it to their own chapters. It is my hope nowthat EWB can be a leading NGO on the issue of neo-colonialism, and fornow, the Windsor chapter will attempt to bring these issues to the fore-front. We will begin by showing and discussing this movie in a memberlearning session on September 29th.

—Mohammed Almoayad, VP Member Learning

The Issue of Global PovertyMovie Review: End of Poverty?

(available for free on YouTube)Director/Writer: Philippe Diaz, Narrated by Martin Sheen, Featuring William Easterly, John Perkins, Amartya Sen,John Christensen, Susan George, Chalmers Johnson, Alvaro García Linares, Joseph Stiglitz and many more.

“The End of Poverty? asks if the true causes of poverty today stem from a deliberate orchestration since colonial times which has evolvedinto our modern system whereby wealthy nations exploit the poor. People living and fighting against poverty answer condemning colonialism

and its consequences; land grab, exploitation of natural resources, debt, free markets, demand for corporate profits and the evolution of aneconomic system in in which 25% of the world's population consumes 85% of its wealth.”

Building a World of Opportunity

WithoutBorders

EWB’s Political Advocacy

More Effective Aid“At EWB, we work to achieve change in government

policies, which impact our work to alleviate poverty, throughpolitical advocacy. Our work is driven by a belief that Canada cando much more to promote development, equality and justice inour world. In order to help shape the decisions of our country,we must have a thorough understanding of the issues along witha breadth of techniques to accomplish our objectives.” (EWBCalgary Professional Chapter)

When EWB sees an opportunity for policy change thatwill help make Canada a leader in international development, we organize national campaigns to make this change happen. Inthe past, EWB has worked on issues such as eliminating tied aid which is now due to be phased out. Currently, EWB is workingon making Canadian aid more transparent. The campaign for transparent aid has included signing petitions, meeting with MPs,giving speeches on Parliament Hill, appearing on television and writing articles in newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. T hiscampaign (which goes well beyond just EWB) has had a recent success with CIDA announcing an open access data portal, andthe campaign will continue with the ultimate goal of having Canada sign on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative(aidtransparency.net). This would allow Canadians to see where their aid money is going, allow development agencies access t ouseful information on current and past projects, and cut down on costly bureaucracy.

—Kyle Eckart, VP Global Engineering

Fair Trade

P. 5

Fair Trade is a business concept that promotes the values of fair-ness and dignity in the market. It ensures that producers of goods (mostlyfarmers and artisans) get a reasonable return on their produce and thatbusiness and consumers have a more ethical option rather than just thosethat are more economical. Fair pricing, however, is not the only require-ment for a product to be certified fair trade. The fair trade movementseeks to promote worker safety and care for the environment as well.

As an organization dedicated to fighting poverty, EWB has dedi-cated itself to promoting fair trade as a way to help many of the impoverished farmers living day to day around the world.Chapters all over the country constantly promote fair trade and organize campaigns that they hope will eventually certify the irrespective universities as having fair trade campuses. In this regard, the greatest achievement thus far would be certifying ofthe University of British Columbia as a fair trade campus thanks to the EWB chapter active there. It is our strong hope that theUniversity of Windsor will eventually have a fair trade campus, and the first step would be developing a consciousness amongstudents on the issues surrounding fair trade.

—Oommen Thomas, VP Accountability

Check out this awesome 100% fair trade store!

Address: 624 Chilver Road Unit 102Phone: 519-255-1293E-mail: windsor@villages.caWebsite: http://villages-windsor.blogspot.com

Mo re than 50% of p eo pl e l iv e onless th an $2.5 0 a day

Mo re than 80% of p eop l e l iv e onless th an $1 0 a day

50% of a l l ch i l dren l iv e under theoffici al pov ert y l ine ($1 . 25/day)

Around 1 in 6 human bei ngs arestarv in g t o death

22, 000 chi l dren di e dai l y due topoverty, on e every 4 s econ ds

The t op 2 0% of h uman it y consum es76.6% of th e res ources

The 41 most indebt ed countr ieshave l ess w ealth th an t he 7 w ealth-iest p eop le

8 comp ani es earn mo re than h alfthe w or ld’s pop ul at ion

CURRENT STATE OF HUMANITY