Impact Stories
Making change happen across Australia and Asia Pacific.
Navigating the tides: Saibai Island’s battle against climate change
In 2024, the First Nations context for the EWB Challenge will be delivered in partnership with Torres Strait Island Regional Council. Torres Strait Island Regional Council is Australia's most northerly municipality, representing 15 unique island communities, spread...

Navigating the tides: Saibai Island’s battle against climate change
In 2024, the First Nations context for the EWB Challenge will be delivered in partnership with Torres Strait Island Regional Council. Torres Strait Island Regional Council is Australia's most northerly municipality, representing 15 unique island communities, spread...

Volunteer adventures in Vanuatu: Sadia’s life-changing year abroad
When Sadia Abdullah arrived in Vanuatu, the first thing she noticed was the heat and the humidity. The second was how friendly everyone was, and the strong sense of community.
Sadia flew into Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, in August 2022. Months earlier, she was at home in Sydney under tight COVID restrictions and eager to go anywhere outside her living room. Now, just a three-hour flight from Sydney, she was in beautiful Vanuatu, a country she knew almost nothing about a few months prior — just “that it was a dot in the Pacific”. Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands with a population of around 300,000 people, located east of Australia on a similar latitude to Cairns.
Reflecting on the first semester of EWB’s Influencer Fellowship
At the start of 2021, five students who displayed exceptional drive and commitment to using their skills to address inequality, sustainability and peace were announced as EWB’s 2021 Influencer Fellows. The EWB Influencer Fellowship is a program to create a network of...
Pathways to possibility for First Nations students
Inspiring Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children to explore a future in engineering is a key tenet of EWB’s “Reimagining Pathways” program. As part of the first phase of this program, the Aboriginal Education Consulting Group (AECG) invited EWB to support...
Futur-neer outreach program awarded WISE Grant
Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Australia’s, “Futur-neer” program has secured a major grant from the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources as part of the Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship (WiSE) program. The Futur-neer program...
Developing a sanitation solution to Vanuatu’s Emten Lagoon pollution
Emten Lagoon is a picturesque and important part of Vanuatu’s Efate Island, with the several communities that reside nearby relying on it for livelihood and lifestyle. But locals have had growing concerns about the lagoon’s pollution levels, in part due to sewage...
Breaking engineering stereotypes in the Torres Strait
In 2019 Erin Hughes received a grant from the MECCA M-Power program to undertake research into the educational impact of Regioneering workshops in the Torres Strait. A sneak peak at the preliminary findings suggests the workshops are achieving their aims, breaking...
Regioneering takes head, heart, and action
By Lachlan Fraser Before the volunteers from EWB’s 2019 Regioneering program flew to the Torres Strait, the students involved in the upcoming workshops were asked to draw a picture of an engineer. One young girl drew a male stick figure next to a car - no surprise!...
Taylah Griffin on self reflection, collective action and courage as keys to achieving reconciliation
My name is Taylah Griffin, Gangalu mob, I am a Flight Test Engineer (FTE) at Boeing Defence Australia (BDA). I completed my Honours degree in Electrical and Aerospace Engineering from QUT in 2018, and in doing so, became the first Indigenous Australian to graduate...
Visioning Reconciliation: Reconciliation, engineering and you
When people say what can I do, I’m just an individual, Arabella Douglas likes to remind them that they’re made of stars. As you might guess, Arabella is passionate about how individuals can come together to create real change. That’s why her involvement in EWB’s...