Impact Stories
Making change happen across Australia and Asia Pacific.
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.
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.
Remote field visits, tuk-tuk commutes, and fish amok: a year in the life of an Australian volunteer
Water, risk, and sustainability engineer Nicole Locke had always wanted to work overseas but there had never been a good time to do it. She graduated into a difficult job market and was lucky enough to find a position with Water Corporation in Perth. Fast forward a few years to 2019 and Nicole was considering her next move.
“I was talking to a mentor and she said, you’ve always thought about going overseas and volunteering,” Nicole said. “’Why don’t you just do it?’ I thought—well, why not?”
Announcing new project – ‘Reimagining Pathways’
A new project aims to explore how EWB Australia can support the growth of First Nations STEM leaders of the future. EWB believes that to solve the challenges faced by the world today and into the future, engineering must be redefined as a socio-technical profession....
Safe workplace culture doesn’t exist because it should, it takes strong internal advocacy
By Melanie Audrey (She/Her) At EWB we nurture our network to be progressive, inclusive and welcoming of diversity. However, we were about to learn that safe workplace culture doesn’t exist because it should, it takes strong internal advocacy. In 2018 an EWB Chapter...
Pro-bono project wins water award
The Australian Water Association recognise the outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations making a positive change and help drive a sustainable water future. Australian Water Association’s Queensland Water Awards were announced on 18 November 2020. The...
Hard Rock Sanitation Solutions and World Toilet Day
World Toilet Day is 19 November. It’s a time to consider the massive impact safer sanitation and hygiene solutions can have for the 4.2 billion people living without access to safe sanitation. The day plays a key role in focusing international efforts to achieve SDG 6: Water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Engineering Possibilities Webinar Q&A
During our Engineering Possibilities Webinar Q&A, held on Wednesday November 4th, 2020, we received many insightful questions and whilst we attempted to provide as many answers as possible, there were a handful we couldn’t get to. We've answered these outstanding...
Celebrate Naidoc Week 2020
We are delighted to celebrate NAIDOC Week 2020 and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements. For 65,000 years First Nations People occupied and cared for our country and were our first farmers, scientists, astronomers,...
2030 Strategy Launch Webinar Q&As
During our 2030 Strategy launch webinar, held on Wednesday October 14, 2020, we were delighted to receive some great questions from our event participants, many of which we did not have the time to answer. We have answered many of these here, in this Q&A post. Q....
Our Manifesto
As part of 2030 Strategy launch, we put a call out to our network to ask them to contribute their voice to our refreshed vision. The result is a video that captures our "manifesto"- a declaration of our intent and an inspiring 'call to arms' for the engineering...