Impact Stories
Making change happen across Australia and Asia Pacific.
A message from EWB CEO, Eleanor Loudon
As Eleanor wraps up six years as EWB Chief Executive Officer this month, she shares some reflections about her experience leading the organisation over the years: An Indigenous elder on an island in Kratie, Cambodia, once took me aside and asked directly, what can...
A message from EWB CEO, Eleanor Loudon
As Eleanor wraps up six years as EWB Chief Executive Officer this month, she shares some reflections about her experience leading the organisation over the years: An Indigenous elder on an island in Kratie, Cambodia, once took me aside and asked directly, what can...
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.
Aligning personal values with an engineering career
When most children get tired of their toys, they’re usually thrown away or donated to the local charity shop. As a young kid growing up in Adelaide, Stephanie May’s mum encouraged her to give away her toys to other children, to bring them some joy. Stephanie was also...
Developing emergency guidelines for Vanuatu
In Vanuatu, the world’s most disaster-prone country, there is not yet an approved approach or plan to guide a sanitation and hygiene response after an emergency. The confluence of Cyclone Harold and a global pandemic in March 2020 saw the significant impact on Vanuatu...
Eliminating disposable nappy waste across the Pacific Islands
Building on initiatives underway in Vanuatu that are exploring solutions to disposable nappy waste - the single largest contributing item to waste in Vanuatu’s capital - EWB is now working on a project to assess solutions to this challenge in 15 countries across the...
Enabling Gender Mainstreaming Through Policy and Programming
In October 2020, EWB’s Board Of Directors demonstrated the organisation's increased commitment to diversity and gender equality, by announcing a specific commitment to board quotas. Currently, five of the eleven board members are women, however, over the next three...
Spring water successes in Timor-Leste
Protecting spring water is critical to ensure the safe - and sustainable - supply of water in many rural communities of Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste is a beautiful but mountainous country, terrain which makes accessing water through borehole wells impractical. As a...
Engineering a decade of action
On World Engineering for Sustainable Development Day (4th March 2021) UNESCO released their second Engineering for Sustainable Development report. Both the report and the day acknowledge the critical role engineers can and must play if we’re to achieve the United...
EWB responds to Timor-Leste floods
Last weekend, and in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown, heavy rain caused widespread flood damage throughout Timor-Leste. Over 11,000 people have been displaced from their homes, and 30% of Dili’s residents are currently unable to access water, due to severely damaged...
Announcing the EWB Influencer Fellowship recipients for 2021
The EWB Influencer Fellowship is a transformative mentorship program that individually supports students who have already displayed a particular drive and commitment to using their skills to address inequality, sustainability and peace. Now in its second year, five...