Case numbers of COVID-19 are spiking across the Asia Pacific region. The “case identification
per day” rate in Cambodia increases by a hundred every other day.

Since the pandemic started more than a year ago some NGO’s and overseas aid organisations have had to reduce or
completely suspend their programs, with international staff and volunteers repatriated for their own safety;
a tragedy-in-the-making when international aid is more important than ever.

Fortunately, EWB is still on the ground. Right now.

And we’ll be there, working in these communities beyond COVID, beyond floods, beyond tomorrow.

EWB is able to continue work with these communities thanks to our commitment to and investment in skilled local staff.
In Cambodia. In Timor-Leste. In Vanuatu.

EWB IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE. NOT WITH EWB CHAMPIONS LIKE YOU.

More than ever, the communities EWB work with need YOUR support. 

SREIMOM and the ACCESSIBLE MOTO project –
Just one vital way EWB is On The Ground right now

Concerns around contagion are rising among rural Cambodians. Sreimom’s story shows why EWB’s work must continue. There are just too many people in too many places impacted by the pandemic in ways we don’t even think of here in Australia.

Sreimom lives and works in Pursat province, rural Cambodia as a teacher at a local NGO.

She is a wheelchair user, heavily reliant on her family and local drivers for transportation.

Family members would have to lift her onto a motorbike-taxi or drive her to work (where a second wheelchair was needed). This is expensive, costing nearly three times the Cambodian average monthly transport cost of US$11. Given the typical disposable income for any of the 1.5 million Cambodians living with disability is less than $22 per month, this presents a very real challenge.

With concerns rapidly growing around the pandemic, people’s need to maintain a safe social distance has made travel for Sreimom even more difficult. Lack of available, accessible, flexible transportation has limited Sreimom’s ability to take part in her community, help her family in the ways she wanted, get to work or carry out ordinary everyday activities like shopping at the local market.

More than ever, projects like these in the communities EWB work with NEED YOUR SUPPORT. 

“… the Accessible Moto is very helpful with
COVID-19… we need to stay apart from each other. I can use the Moto to travel independently, without going close to anyone!”

The Accessible Moto prototype, developed in conjunction with partner organisation Light For
The World Cambodia, is a kind of hybrid tricycle/cart/motor-bike. It is affordable. It is simple to use. It’s simple to maintain.

It has changed Sreimom’s life.

Despite the restrictions imposed by the COVID spike Sreimom can get to work, to the hospital, she can help her family, she can attend the pagoda for religious ceremonies, she can collect items from the market, take children to school and even “cruise around Pursat Province whenever and wherever she needs to…”

Sreimom now has the freedom she needs.

Over the coming year EWB will trial more prototypes with a range of users who live with mobility challenges in a range of environments. We’ll be building, testing and improving new models that have the potential to provide not just freedom but livelihoods for people often ignored or relegated to the edges of their communities.

Ultimately we aim to upskill local teams to not just maintain but build the Accessible Moto, creating jobs for people living with disability and promoting the Moto to the wider community as a safe, reliable, affordable and, even, desirable transport option!  

In projects like this, and the many others throughout the Asia Pacific region, EWB’s consultative Tech Dev Approach (TDA) ensures
that PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISADVANTAGE ARE ABLE TO CHANGE THEIR STORY, to take control of their lives and to play a meaningful role not just in their own futures but the future success of their communities.

Your donation now has 10x the impact!*

hen you donate to EWB’s On The Ground appeal you are helping EWB maintain, resource and support teams of talented technical experts and local volunteers in Cambodia, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. You’re helping EWB coordinate volunteer efforts, deliver programs, finish projects and start new ones, to innovate, invent, support and solve throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Your support here in Australia has made a huge difference overseas.

With the pandemic a worsening reality for the Asia Pacific region, the communities EWB work with need every gesture, every thought, every spare cent of impact we can deliver to them. They need a way through this.

No matter the size, you can make a difference, again.

Right now.

Your support, now and tomorrow, will help vulnerable communities build their own ways forward.

* – Every donation made to the EWB On The Ground appeal will be combined with funding from the Australian Government. We have committed to contribute $1 in donations from the Australian public for every $10 received from the Australian government. Your donation will allow us to extend our programs so as to reach even more people, even more communities over the coming year.