Service in Engineering

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is an international non-profit humanitarian organization. Student chapters pair with professional engineers and developing communities worldwide with the goal of improving the communities’ quality of life. They focus on implementing engineering projects the community wants and can maintain themselves. Projects usually involve three stages: identification and assessment, planning, and implementation. And then, of course, there’s fundraising. EWB members at Hopkins are responsible for raising 1/3 of the funds through private contacts (like family and friends), 1/3 through talks to community groups, and 1/3 through departmental and outside grants. Read on to meet some EWB students and see what they have to say about their experiences.

Maya Sathyanadhan

For Maya, it’s all about water. An environmental engineering graduate student, Maya is the Hopkins’ EWB chapter president, and is almost finished with her master’s degree. Maya put her knowledge and skills to work in South Africa last summer when her chapter partnered with the Church Agricultural Project (CAP) to build ram pumps (which harness the energy of a large amount of moving water to move a small amount uphill) in a community in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Thanks to the project, the community was able to double the size of their gardens, which means more produce for them to eat and to sell. For Maya, the most rewarding parts of the project were the satisfaction of having the pump work and playing with the kids, knowing that ultimately the project is for the younger generation. (Visit the project web page).

This summer, Maya is going to Guatemala to help design and build a pump and pipe to bring drinkable spring water to a community that currently must haul it by hand from the bottom of a 100-foot ravine.

Shane Woolwine

Junior-year computer engineering major Shane has been involved in EWB for a year. He’s trying to get a project in Honduras off the ground and traveled there last spring to do an initial assessment in a community that needs a clean water source. The project is in the early planning stages, and Shane and other EWB members are planning a second assessment trip this summer. Although he’s an engineering major, Shane is not sure if he’s going to be a career engineer. But he does know that he’d like to work with people, and thinks EWB is a great way to do that. Contrary to the popular belief that developing countries need civil engineers above all else, Shane says, “they really just need people who care, and are willing to do the work and show that although we’re college students we really want to make a difference in that community.”

Linda Wan

Sophmore Linda Wan just happened to see an EWB flyer around campus and thought it would be a great opportunity to travel. But she was hooked after her first trip to Ecuador last summer, where the rookie Hopkins chapter tagged along on the implementation trip of the University of Maryland College Park's veteran EWB chapter. Working alongside community members, the team constructed 40 latrines in two small communities in the Andes. (Read a story about the project and Linda's blog about it.)

Now, Linda is the co-project leader of Hopkins' own EWB Ecuador project team. This summer they’ll work with the community of Santa Rosa (outside of the capital Quito) to build a day care and community building. Linda just went on an assessment and planning trip to Santa Rosa in January. Her favorite part of EWB projects is “getting to the community and submerging yourself in their culture and way of life. It’s different and eye opening. And it’s really fun.”

Yuri Semenyuk

First-year Environmental Engineering grad student Yuri has a clear, but not necessarily simple, goal -- “improving peoples’ lives in developing countries by providing good clean water.” Yuri has been on several humanitarian aid trips to the Ukraine and South America, and has spent time studying abroad in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. He’s a graduate student advisor for the Hopkins EWB, Yuri is involved in all their projects to some degree and is hoping to go with EWB members to Guatemala or South Africa this summer for his first engineering-related trip. Born in the Ukraine, Yuri moved to Seattle, Washington when he was 8. Yuri plans to have a lifetime commitment to engineering projects in developing countries.

Visit EWB-JHU's website to find out more about their projects and experiences.