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.
Congratulations to the 2023 EWB Challenge Showcase award winners
Each year, the EWB Challenge Showcase brings together top university student teams from across Australia and New Zealand, EWB staff, our community partner representatives, and industry. Students present the most innovative, community-centred design ideas developed in response to the EWB Challenge Design Brief, and all event participants celebrate a year of learning, focused work, and collaboration. This year’s EWB Challenge Showcase saw students, academics, judges, and EWB staff from across Australia, New Zealand and Cambodia travel to James Cook University’s Nguma-bada campus in far north Queensland to battle it out for the top spot.
Partnering for the Pacific with EWB New Zealand
Our work in Vanuatu is delivered through an ongoing peer partnership with EWB New Zealand, which commenced over ten years ago. EWB Australia and EWB NZ work together strategically - coordinating initiatives jointly as well as alongside each other - across a range of...
Rural students ideate for the STEM Design Challenge
EWB Australia teams up with organisations and industry determined to expose more girls and young women to STEM pathways and careers in the STEM Design Challenge. It’s a massive conundrum for country Australia – how to water crops in times of drought. Year six students...
#MySTEMstory
This National Science Week we've collaborated with UTS Women In Engineering and IT and the Techgirls Movement Foundation to share #MySTEMstory - the stories of women from rural regions of NSW who have forged amazing careers in STEM. In Australia, and particularly in...
Creating greater impact through mobilisation
Our first year of activating our mobilisation strategy has created more opportunities for volunteers and more support for communities. 53 volunteers mobilised 4 conceptual design projects completed (another 3 in progress) 800+ volunteer hours The launch of EWB...
Valuable New Opportunities For Engineering On Country
Program Re-think Opens Up Valuable New Opportunities For Supporting Remote Indigenous Communities Due to COVID-19, access to remote Indigenous communities in Australia has been restricted, resulting in Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) withdrawing face-to-face...
Design Challenge for Your Community
This National Science Week, the University of Technology Sydney, Engineers Without Borders Australia and Tech Girls Movement Foundation invite students to 'create for your community' in a two-day design challenge. On Thursday 20 & Friday 21 August 2020, classes...
ATEC biodigesters commence roll-out into Bangladesh
Pictured: In Bangladesh, Akhi is trialling the ATEC biodigester. Since launching as a social enterprise, ATEC* (of which EWB Australia is a shareholder) has reached over 1,500 households across rural Cambodia with its biodigester technology. Last year, a AU$2.35...
EWB Australia and FREO2 form alliance to design and scale life-saving oxygen technology
Pictured: Francis is happier and healthier three days after receiving oxygen therapy for suspected pneumonia/sepsis. Image credit: Peter Casamento Photography/FREO2 Pneumonia is the biggest killer of children across the globe, causing over 800,000 deaths per year*....