Impact Stories
Making change happen across Australia and Asia Pacific.
This graduate program puts women engineers in the field and brings ‘feto’ to the front
In Timor-Leste, water is a woman’s problem. In rural and regional areas, water generally isn’t delivered into homes – women and children manually fetch water from the natural springs and carry the household’s water supply back home every morning. It’s heavy work and can take them quite far afield in an often rocky, mountainous region.
Although water is a woman’s responsibility, and the burden of poor water infrastructure becomes a woman’s problem, there aren’t many women engineers working in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector.
Engineering continues to be a male-dominated industry, especially in a country like Timor-Leste, where traditional gender roles are still influential in dictating what people do for work. But a new program delivered by the Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) team in Timor-Leste seeks to change that.
This graduate program puts women engineers in the field and brings ‘feto’ to the front
In Timor-Leste, water is a woman’s problem. In rural and regional areas, water generally isn’t delivered into homes – women and children manually fetch water from the natural springs and carry the household’s water supply back home every morning. It’s heavy work and can take them quite far afield in an often rocky, mountainous region.
Although water is a woman’s responsibility, and the burden of poor water infrastructure becomes a woman’s problem, there aren’t many women engineers working in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector.
Engineering continues to be a male-dominated industry, especially in a country like Timor-Leste, where traditional gender roles are still influential in dictating what people do for work. But a new program delivered by the Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) team in Timor-Leste seeks to change that.
Building on pilot success: Indigenous-led Youth Outreach program returns to Far North Queensland
After a successful pilot last year, Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB)’s Indigenous-led Youth Outreach program has returned to Lama Lama Country in Far North Queensland, with the goal of sparking a curiosity in engineering among First Nations students. The...
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...
Stellar EWB involvement leads to donation
One day in 2018, while spending part of her gap year volunteering as a teacher in Cambodia, Charli Fell’s career aspirations changed completely. Charli had always wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. She thought the best way to do so would be to become...
Meet our Futur-neers: David Sea
Pictured: David on-site in NSW in his role as an undergraduate process engineer with Metso Outotec in 2022. Growing up in Cambodia, David Sea never imagined he would one day be teaching children in rural Australia how to build floating houses like those on the Tonle...
Futur-neers Forum 2022 – the wrap
The Futur-neers Forum was a welcome and long overdue in-person reconnection of EWB’s Chapter network after a two-year, lockdown-riddled hiatus. Over 50 EWB staff and Chapter volunteers - representing 16 of the 19 active EWB Chapters dotted right across Australia -...
Meet our Futur-neers: Chelsea Hayward
Feature image: Chelsea picking coffee beans in Railaco, Timor Leste during her time volunteering as a mentor on a Humanitarian Design Summit trip in July 2018. Nurse. Farmer. Social worker. Athlete. Biomedical scientist. These were just some of the many careers that...
Creating opportunity for migrant and refugee engineers
The professional qualifications of migrants and refugees arriving in Australia are often buried by the obstacles that come with settling in a new country. EWB’s NSW Chapter and Metro Assist are creating opportunities to address these challenges. English as a foreign...
New social enterprise brings electric cooking to schools and institutions in Cambodia
EWB Australia is partnering with FuturEcook - a social enterprise that improves health, education and the environment with smart electric cooking for schools and other institutions in Cambodia. Donate to our joint fundraising campaign so we can make start! Across the...
Vertical gardens addressing space, water and food security issues in Vanuatu
Erratic rainfall, small spaces and fluctuation in market costs are creating food security issues for vulnerable communities in Vanuatu. A new project is developing solutions for 1000 people to create their own daily food supply and carve out livelihoods, with the...