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You are currently browsing the Engineers Without Borders at Boston University blog archives for December, 2012.

Dec

30

North East Regional Conference 2012!

By ewbexec

Hello Everyone!

The end of the fall semester is always a hectic period with finals and the winter recess, but we want to get you connected with the most recent activity going on with EWB. Every November we look forward to the Northeast Region Conference hosted for all EWB chapters in the New England area. This year it was our privilege to have a group of six devoted attend the conference.  They learned a lot of information from distinguished speakers and had the opportunity to interact with neighboring chapters. The students had only great things to say about their experiences, so we want to tell you about it also!

Our EWB-BU Team!

As we continue our partnership with the Naluja community in Zambia, the presentations helped understand the essential features needed to build an optimal relationship. Such a relation is vital in finding the core issues in a community and proposing long-term solutions that will fit the needs of the people. We must be knowledgeable of the social and cultural identity of our community; one of the ways we’re doing this is through close contact and open communication. Also, they emphasized the notion of embracing every step of a project as a special bond is formed between the EWB chapter and community. Furthermore, a synchronous relationship should build as teams of students will be mentored and in turn educate the people in communities on the issues and proposed solutions.

Another takeaway from the conference were the many professional speakers who talked about specific projects they were working on with their respective chapters. This was very informative and helpful to us as it provided a breadth of extra information for us to consider as we begin to model and prototype our own projects. For example, when implementing a water filtration system, an important attribute to consider is the presence of natural sources, such as hills, that would ease accessibility and movement of water. Also, community choice is vital in ensuring that the engineering solutions we are proposing will satisfy their needs.

One of many interesting lectures

We hope that this will give you some insight on the exciting           relationship between EWB-BU and our partner community in Zambia. We are looking forward to using all of this information to improve     our projects and relation with our partners, as we seek to make a change!

Dec

13

2012 Year End Giving Campaign

By ewbexec

We're officially into our 2012 Year End Giving Campaign!

From November 26th to January 15th, EWB-USA has pledged to match any donations made by you! Half the funds will go to EWB-USA and half to our very own student chapter. That means we get 150% the donation amount, whether it's $10 or $100, and your donation will have twice the impact.

EWB-USA is also setting a prize for the groups with (1) the largest amounts of donations, and (2) the largest number of donors! We've set a goal of $30,000 this year for our projects, so if you'd like to donate, you can check out our website, where you can easily donate by card, check, or stock! Here's our donation form.

The money raised by this campaign will be put toward our chapter's project in Zambia, where we're working on three different projects -- a cell signal antenna, water filtration system, and electricity generator. We've already created prototypes for these projects, and are hoping to make another trip to Zambia this summer to implement our antenna and assess the situation in Naluja for our water filtration and electricity generation projects.

You can help us make a difference!