Blog
Stories from EWB Australia
Global travels and local impact – Bea Duffield’s volunteering journey
Bea Duffield isn’t an engineer, but her experience spans almost everything else. From her academic background in scientific research to her career across both private enterprise and government sector, she has worked in a range of diverse fields including resource...
Remote field visits, tuk-tuk commutes, and fish amok: a year in the life of an Australian volunteer
Caption: Australian Volunteers Program Field Professionals, Nicole and Bea, visiting a school in Siem Reap where an accessible handwashing station was installed by EWB in partnership with CRST. Water, risk, and sustainability engineer Nicole Locke had always wanted...
Congratulations to the 2023 EWB Challenge Showcase award winners
Caption: EWB Challenge finalists preparing their presentation at the 2023 EWB Challenge Showcase held in Cairns. Each year, the EWB Challenge Showcase brings together top university student teams from across the country. Students present the most innovative,...
Meet our Futur-neers: Erin Hughes
Growing up on a boat in the Torres Strait until she was 14, water was an integral part of Erin Hughes’ childhood. Today, it’s the focus of her work as an engineer. After completing a Chemical Engineering degree at the University of Queensland, Erin is now a Surface Water Engineer at Hydrology and Risk Consulting in Victoria. She works in flood engineering and hydrology, working with emergency services to manage flood risks and providing technical input to dam operators across Australia.
Q&A from ‘What every engineer must do to create solutions that stick’ webinar
Thank you to everyone who attended our webinar, What every engineer must do to create solutions that stick. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! It was a wonderful discussion and we thank you for your insightful questions and feedback. In case you missed it, you...
Meet our Futur-neers: Hannah Jury
It’s not all calculations and writing reports when you’re an engineer. Sometimes you’re abseiling from some of the tallest buildings in Melbourne’s CBD. Or at least that’s what a ‘day in the office’ can look like for façade engineer, Hannah Jury.
Nation-building for Timor-Leste
EWB’s engineering skills and in-country presence in Timor-Leste has been utilised to support an important nation-building project.
The PhD unpacking intersecting complexities in WASH
A soon-to-be-published PhD thesis takes learnings from EWB’s Sanitation in Challenging Environment program to investigate the interlocking and compounding complexities that create inequalities in water and sanitation access for communities in challenging contexts.
Volunteering for ‘real-world work experience’
Volunteers are so important to EWB’s work. They dedicate time and effort to ensure the inclusion of those often left behind, drive climate action and advance the Sustainable Development Goals. We have volunteers whom support our work in Australia, and volunteers that work with our teams in-country. Kit Kann is one of them.
Meeting on Yirrganydji Country for the EWB Challenge Showcase
Hosted by event sponsors TNQ Drought Hub and The Cairns Institute at James Cook University’s Nguma-bada campus, the 15th EWB Challenge Showcase heralded the return to in-person showcases since the start of the pandemic. Students, academics, judges, and EWB staff from around Australia were eager to travel to Yirrganydji Country in far north Queensland, which was the site of the project brief for this year’s EWB Challenge.
Meet EWB volunteer, Harshana!
Harshana, Civil and Water Engineer Volunteering with the EWB Australia in Vanuatu team Harshana is part of EWB's volunteer crew in Vanuatu, and is just one of the hundreds of volunteers across the EWB volunteer network! Volunteers dedicate time and effort to ensure...
Futur-neered: a Youth Outreach milestone
Caption: Youth Outreach volunteers convene at the Futur-neers Forum in Melbourne (April 2022). A year of targeted investment in EWB’s volunteer-driven Youth Outreach program placed a strong focus on impact evaluation and shaping the “next era” of outreach at EWB. The...
Volunteering for skills and to contribute to ‘my beloved country’
We celebrate the amazing contribution of our volunteers every day! But United Nations International Volunteer Day, on December 5th each year, is a time to give an immense thanks! Volunteers are so important to EWB's work. They dedicate time and effort to ensure the...
Clean, safe water needed for remote Indigenous communities
Access to safe and reliable water is a basic human right, and essential for health and quality of life. Yet not all remote First Nations communities can access it. The Engineers Without Borders Australia Engineering on Country (EoC) Water Program aims to ensure First...
Sanitation solutions for hard ground environments in Cambodia
Despite significant progress over the years to increase access to rural sanitation services, Cambodia continues to report the highest rate of open defecation in the region. In 2011, to address the many health and environmental issues associated with open defecation,...
Announcing our 2023 EWB Challenge community partner
Photo caption: Technology Development Specialist Mariny Chheang and Program Support Officer Chanrika Keo leading a female focus group with Pu Ngaol village members. Each year, over 10,000 first-year university students across Australia and New Zealand participate in...
Meet our Futur-neers: Emily Chung
Feature image: Emily renovating women’s crisis accommodation with Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer in 2018. “I’m quite motivated by doing things other people don’t. Being one of the only female students in my engineering classes didn’t bother me. I proved that I...
Meet our Futur-neers: Elise McCaul
Image: UNSW Chapter Co-President, Elise McCaul, presenting a session about her experience delivering Youth Outreach at the 2022 Futur-neers Forum. As Elise kicked off her first year studying a Bachelor of Civil Engineering at The University of New South Wales, it...
The challenge that blew his mind: Tim Kuiper
As a newly-minted undergrad, Tim Kuiper took a seat in his first class of mechanical engineering at Deakin University. Little did he know, it was a unit that was about to blow his mind. It was 2007. Lizzie Brown, EWB’s Education Officer at the time (who later became...
Embedding Indigenous perspectives at Griffith University
The academic team at Griffith University has been working to authentically embed Indigenous perspectives into their engineering and design curriculum. This begins in a student's first year at Griffith University with the EWB Challenge program, which introduces...
Using human-centred design tools in community
Feature image: EWB Technology Development Lead Mitch Horrocks at a participatory design workshop in Darlau, Timor-Leste in May 2022. Over 3,500 people have directly benefited from new, appropriate technology that EWB has been involved in implementing in Cambodia,...
EWB Australia responds to the floods in northern NSW
Feature image: Volunteer Field Lead Engineer and EWB Australia Board Member, Gavin Blakey, HHUG director Ella Rose Goninan, and volunteer engineer Dominic (Cav) Cavanough outside “The Ark”, HHUG's Op Shop in Mullumbimby which provides free clothing and household goods...
New research give critical insights into disposal of nappy waste in the Pacific
Featured image: Erakor Community Facilitator A new research report on nappy use in the Pacific has been released which provides critical insights into addressing the estimated 815 million single-use nappies used and disposed of in the Pacific region each year. EWB...
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