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Last weekend, Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) hosted chapters from other schools for a conference on student-run service projects. About 30 students from RutgersUniversity, LehighUniversity, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute participated in “Sustainability 101: Student Service Projects” March 30-31.
The conference dealt with the challenges of starting and sustaining service projects. It allowed Lafayette students to share their experiences from organizing a group to working with the College and other organizations to making sure the group continues after the founders graduate.
Members of EWB know a thing or two about sustainability.
The group’s main project for the last several years has been providing about 1,000 people in Lagunitas and La Fortuna, two rural villages in the Yoro district of central Honduras, with clean drinking water. Last year, EWB received national media exposure for being one of six college and university teams from across the country to be awarded a $75,000 grant through the Environmental Protection Agency’s P3: People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability. The group also received a $10,000 grant from Kathryn Wasserman Davis 100 Projects for Peace for starting a new economic initiative as part of its ongoing work in Honduras.
“EWB’s goals for the conference were to share our experiences about working on projects in Honduras – what worked and what went wrong, as well our experiences with working on the project on campus, fundraising, organizational structure, and working with school administration,” says conference organizer Taha Jiwaji ’08 (Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania). “The other goal of the conference was to learn from the experiences of other chapters, as well exchange views on how to improve the sustainability of our projects.”
Student groups at the conference who were just starting service projects learned about models, organizations, and gaining student, faculty, and administrative support. Established groups learned about continuity, finance, and techniques on working with their colleges or universities.
David Munoz, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, presented the keynote address “Sustainability and Student Service Learning Projects.”
Members of EWB who organized the conference include Jiwaji, who is pursuing a B.S. electrical and computer engineering and A.B. with a major in economics and business; assistant project manager Kavinda Udugama ’09 (Kandy, Sri Lanka), an electrical and computer engineering major; cultural team leader Daniela Ochoa Diaz ’08 (Davie, Fla.), an international affairs major; outreach team leader Michael Adelman ’10 (Clarks Summit, Pa.); technical team leader Debra Perrone ’08 (Fair Lawn, N.J.), a civil engineering major; Margaret Garcia ’07 (Stamford, Conn.), who is pursuing a B.S. civil engineering and A.B. with a major in international studies; and Mike Lemken ’09 (Emerson, N.J.), a civil engineering major.