Engineers Without Borders, a student group at Brown and a chapter of a national organization committed to using engineering in a socially responsible way, received Category III funding status from the Undergraduate Council of Students last month.
Engineers Without Borders-USA is a national nonprofit corporation founded in the fall of 2000 that promotes the "central role" engineers must play "in building a sustainable future." The Brown chapter of EWB was founded three years ago and legally became an official chapter of EWB-USA in May 2006.
Emily Kunen '08, president of the Brown chapter, said the group has two main goals - "on the one hand, to work on socially responsible engineering projects, but on the other hand, also educate engineering students and the community about the potential for that type of work."
"There's a lot of people who just think of engineers as consultants who you assign a task to and don't really take into consideration the social, political, economic and all other components of the work," she said.
The group worked on several projects while it was still in the process of joining the national group, and it has now expanded the scope of its projects, working on both the local and international levels.
One of EWB's current projects is the construction of a health clinic in Peru, a joint effort with the EWB chapter at the State University of New York-Binghamton.
Chioke Harris '08, vice president of EWB, said the Peru project is the group's "flagship" effort. "It's going to take the most resources, and we're working with another school on it," he said. "It's kind of a big deal."
The group also works on local projects, including work on campus and outreach to students in Providence schools. The group is currently building a large hourglass for Oxfam@Brown, which will be filled with marbles. A marble will fall through every three seconds to represent a child dying of starvation.
There had been another hourglass about 10 years ago, but it "just sort of disappeared," said Harris, who is leading the project. "There are no real records of it ever existing. We know the person who built it, but that's pretty much all we know," he said.
The hourglass, which is being constructed in Barus & Holley, should be complete by the end of the semester.
"We have nothing to work with, so we're starting entirely from scratch and just from what people remember or urban legend," Harris said.
Alex Surasky-Ysasi '07, who said she has been a member of the group since her sophomore year, said working with EWB adds an element of reality to her study of engineering.
"Brown engineering's pretty theoretical," she said. "This is real engineering, and this is really helping people. This is what engineering can do. I think that understanding the reality of solving engineering problems on top of helping people is just this amazing space to do good work."
EWB is not just for engineers - the group's organizers say they hope more non-engineers will join the group. Non-engineers can provide valuable experience and outlook to the group, Kunen and Harris said.
"There is a large part of what we do that not only requires a lot of engineering expertise, but it's helpful to have people who address the problems in different ways - who look at things and can kind of collaborate with us," Harris said. "Engineers don't all think the same way, but it's kind of nice to have a breath of fresh air."
Many of the projects have aspects that require fields of expertise outside of engineering. "Like, for the Peru project ... it is important that we have people who speak Spanish, and people who know the specific Peruvian culture, people who are interested in anthropology, international relations or political science," Kunen said. "You can't just implement an engineering project and have it work. You have to make sure it's culturally appropriate."
"Nothing stands on engineering alone," Kunen added. "That's why we need other people."
