Engineering Hope
Engineers Without Borders work to bring smiles to the world
April 2nd, 2008
By Alice Vislova
Illustration by Anders Carlson
Engineering students are trading in their graphing calculators for cordless drills and bandanas. Engineers Without Borders is a nonprofit organization that constructs engineering solutions to humanitarian dilemmas in the developing world. Spearheaded in 2000 by charismatic leader Dr. Bernard Amadei and $14,000, EWB has grown to include over 250 professional and student chapters, including a University of Minnesota chapter that recently completed a project in Ghana.
The roads in the rural Ghanian village of Amponasah Akroase are unpaved and lined with open sewers, according to literature from EWB-UMN. “Any local water source likely holds Guinea Worm larvae, which grow to three feet long inside the villager’s intestines, then emerge through a painful blister in the skin.”
Last summer, students from the U of M traveled to this village to discover that one seemingly simple feat of engineering can, quite literally, make all the difference in the world. With some guidance from a faculty member, students designed and implemented a practical solution for the problem – they built a well.
But where do you get the energy to pump water from deep within the earth of a rural African village? The students installed eight 180-watt solar panels to power the 300-volt pump installed in the well. The result: a reliable solution that the villagers can maintain by themselves.
The idea behind EWB is to help without making the area chronically dependent on Western aid. “I’m against charity,” Amadei said to a packed auditorium at the U of M on March 4. “The old saying goes: ‘Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. I say, teach [the locals] to catch fish, skin fish, put fish in a can, sell the fish, and make a business out of it.”
The experience isn’t just life changing for the locals. “A lot of us came back with completely different insight of what we wanted to do,” said team member David Gasparino about the project in Ghana. Amadei believes engineers learn more from the locals than the locals learn from them. “It’s a two-way street,” he said.
The old saying goes: ‘Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. I say, teach [the locals] to catch fish, skin fish, put fish in a can, sell the fish, and make a business out of it.
The mission of EWB is two-fold, according to Amadei. “Young people have a lot of creative juice,” he said. “It is important to train them to express creativity in a constructive way.”
In addition to improving the quality of human life in third world countries, Amadei said he hopes EWB will train engineers for a new era of ‘engineering with a human heart.’
“Students are sick of doing problems 5.1 through 5.10 in the back of chapter five,” he said, “and frankly, I am sick of assigning them – it’s a win-win situation”
Amadei thinks engineering programs should teach students to consider the social, environmental and political impacts of their designs. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, he teaches a comprehensive course about “engineering for the other 90 percent” that includes these aspects.
Amadei’s work has not gone without recognition. He has won numerous awards and EWB has gained many dedicated patrons, both large corporation and enthusiastic individuals. “I’m totally committed,” retired teacher Ruth Jones said. “I am going to continue giving to them unless they absolutely blow it – and they won’t blow it.”
EWB is coursing forward with over 200 projects underway and new ideas being generated every day. “Who do I talk to if I want to propose an idea,” asked a woman standing up in the crowded auditorium on March 4, “because I have an idea for an electronic notebook to track children’s’ immunizations.” Amadei commended her enthusiasm. “If you don’t like something – speak out,” he said. “By not speaking out you are allowing genocide to happen over and over again.”
Amadei called for an awareness of poverty and injustice beyond engineering and EWB. “Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and write down your mission statement,” he urged of his audience. “You need to have a mission or you are just a loose cannonball - a boat drifting on the ocean of life… Each one of us has an obligation to make this world a better place.”
Amadei’s voice changed timbre when he spoke about those in need. “They are people who have dreams and hope, be it broken dreams and broken hope,” he said. “They are made of flesh, like you and me.” He ended his lecture with a photograph of children smiling at a solar-powered computer installed in the middle of a desert. “That’s my mission statement,” he concluded, “bringing smiles into the world.”
