Engineers Without Borders

STRETCH GOAL OF $14,000 TO FURTHER FUND OUR PROJECTS!

Our Mission

Engineers Without Borders - University of California, Berkeley (EWB-UCB) envisions a future where basic human needs are met across the world on a daily basis. We engage and empower developing communities through projects which implement sustainable solutions on matters of water storage, sanitation, agriculture, and infrastructure.

EWB-UCB is a chapter of the national organization Engineers Without Borders - USA, and is composed of UC Berkeley undergraduate students and professional engineering mentors. For each project, a team of students and mentors is assembled to work alongside a developing community abroad and find sustainable solutions to a given problem. Projects require many travel trips to the partner community for field research, community outreach, and implementation of our designs. These projects can last anywhere from five to ten years. Currently, we have three ongoing projects in Panama and Nicaragua. Please support our projects by making a gift today!

Nicaragua Sanitation Project:

The project works to address sanitation inadequacies within the rural community of Cuyali, Nicaragua. The current number of working latrines is insufficient for the 305 members of the community and is the cause of numerous health-related issues. They were originally provided by the government over 10 years ago, but are no longer safe for use, and there are several reports of community members getting sick or latrines physically collapsing on them. The project’s main goal is to build approximately 60 more latrines for the community of Cuyali so that each families will have their own working latrine, thus lowering the risk of contracting sanitation-related illnesses in the community. Once the latrines are complete, the individual families will be responsible for maintenance and repairs of the latrines throughout their twenty year life span, and will be trained by the travel team and the Nicaragua-based NGO, Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG) Madriz, on how to do so. We need your support to maximize the amount of latrines built!

Nicaragua Water Project:

El Llanito is a community of around 1200 people in mountainous rural Nicaragua. The community collects water from a central well, and some community members have to walk as much as two hours a day to collect water. Community members have been working to gain more consistent access to water since 2000. In order to increase local access to potable water, UC Berkeley students are working with an interdisciplinary team of experts from across the US to design and plan a water distribution system. This project is done in collaboration with the San Francisco professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders and with Alcance Nicaragua, an NGO based in the community.

Our team has spent the last year conceptualizing the design options to ensure that our solutions meet the needs of the community and beginning final designs for implementation. This semester, our team will be concentrating our full efforts on finalizing designs (tank site, trenching, etc.) and completing the required documentation for implementation, with the goal of beginning construction this summer. Our goal is to make clean water accessible to all in the community of El Llanito and end the need of hours of commute just to get water. Please make a donation today to help us reach our goal!

Panama Project:

The Panama Project has focused to provide clean, reliable drinking water to the community in Kuna Nega, Panama through the construction of a water distribution system and community led participation. So far, over the past three years, the Panama team has visited the community of Kuna Nega seven times, completing three assessment trips and four implementation trips. Our most recent trip took place this January of 2019, where the team worked with the local water municipality and the community water committee to ensure the continued delivery and fair use of the water supply. We also completed the construction of the water tanks by adding roofs atop each tank to minimize heat transfer. In order to completely finish this project, we need your help to fund an evaluation and monitoring trip to ensure the long term sustainability of the project. This portion of the project is extremely important to ensure the water system is able to function and be maintained without the help of EWB-UCB or supporting NGOs.

Impact of Your Donations

$250 - Builds a tap stand

$500 - Builds a latrine

$1000 - Builds a water tank

$2500 - Sends a member on a travel trip

$5000 - Builds a tank site

Keep Up With What We Are Doing

Website: UC Berkeley, Engineers Without Borders 

Facebook: Engineers Without Borders - UC Berkeley

Instagram: @ewb.ucb

Thank you for your support! When our generous supporters, skilled members and motivated community members join forces, we change lives.