And now, a bit about the Junior Fellowship Program...

A Junior Fellowship placement with Engineers Without Borders doesn't start the day we take off on the plane. In fact, I am not yet gone, but the program has already started for me!

Since December, I have started what is called the Foundation Learning to get ready to go overseas. It consists of readings, assignments, monthly webtrains (online discussions) and weekly coffee shops with two past Junior Fellows from the EWB Guelph chapter that covers a wide range of topics from Rural Livelihoods to Creating Change. I especially really enjoy the coffee shops every Wednesday with Kyla, Janna and Kim. Kyla and Janna, who went to Malawi and Ghana respectively this past summer, are full of resources and are very supportive. Kim is the other wonderful JF from Guelph who is going to Ghana this summer.

Once overseas, I will be working during 3 months and a half with a partner organisation in one of the two following areas: water and sanitation, or agriculture. My role has not been defined yet nor the partner organization that I will be working with. Eli, the Junior Fellowship Support Staff in Southern Africa, is currently meeting with local NGOs to find where the volunteers can have a potential impact.

When I will be back in Canada, my role as a returning JF will be to share my experience with the chapter and the community. I think that this experience will allow me to talk with more confidence about the challenges faced in developing communities and discuss with further depth the approach taken by EWB overseas. I can hear people say: ''but you already had experience overseas.. what would be the difference?'' Well, it is true that I have already volunteered in Cambodia for 8 months and saw some of the challenges in developing communities. But at that time, I knew little about development work and poverty issues. I am not pretending to know a lot more now, but I want to build on that previous experience and see how the approach adopted by EWB can be improved to have a greater impact. Having that past experience will allow me to relate certain things with the current situation in Zambia, but I cannot simply recreate what I have done before. In other words, I should not make assumptions based on previous similar cases that I have seen. Zambia has a totally different history and culture and things that are perceived acceptable in one community might not be in another. Things that worked in a particular context might not work in another. This is going to be one of my challenges, but with the readings that I am doing about Zambia I will have some kind of background to help me out!

A bit about Engineers Without Borders (EWB)...

When I first found out about EWB, it was four years ago.

At that time, I was simply searching on the Internet about any international development organizations that worked in Cambodia.

And at that time, EWB just seemed to me like any other non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

When I 'second' found out about EWB, it was three years ago.

At that time, I was on the phone with a friend who had just met someone from EWB and had decided to join the chapter at his university. He was telling me all about their work and I remember hearing him say 'critical thinking', 'driving change' and 'awesome'.

When I 'third' found out about EWB, it was almost two years ago.

At that time, I was coming back from a gap year spent in Cambodia volunteering with an NGO that allowed me to see a lot of the negative sides of development. I came back with some sort of disillusionment and frustration and I did not know if I would ever work in development again. But then, I came across a booth ran by a few EWB members of the Guelph Chapter wearing bright orange shirts. The sign on their table said: "Promoting human development through access to technology".

That's EWB mission statement. EWB is in fact a non-profit organization that works to improve the livelihoods in developing communities by focusing on human development. EWB helps to build capacity within the communities and works with local partner organizations to find effective and appropriate ways to break the cycle of poverty. EWB focuses on supporting existing projects in the following rural technical sectors: water and sanitation, energy, food processing and production, and agriculture. While EWB has been working in many different countries on three continents in the past, the focus is now narrowed down to four countries in Africa: Ghana, Zambia, Malawi and Burkina Faso. Putting all the energy and resources in one area of the world allows EWB to be more effective and to seek for a more sustainable impact in the communities.

EWB does work in Canada as well. With all the learnings and experiences that the overseas volunteers bring back to Canada, EWB wants to encourage global citizenship in each individual and in our government. Awareness and lobbying campaigns, school and corporate presentations, and public outreach events are some of the things that EWB does here. You have probably heard of the Make Poverty History or the Stand Up Against Poverty campaigns, the bill c-293, the 0.7% pledge...

And as we like to say in EWB, "we hope to work ourselves out of job within our lifetime".

Here is the Z-Unit! Team Zambia is meeting!

Team Zambia 'experiencing' some sort of illness...
L'équipe Zambie qui 'éprouve' un certain malaise...
From left to right, top to bottom (de gauche à droite, haut en bas): Brett, Brian, Vera, Cherie, Mark, Florin, Madavine, Mina, Olivia, Helen

This past January, over 700 delegates from all across the country gathered in Montréal for the Engineers Without Borders National Conference, and 39 of them were there as the ongoing Junior Fellow volunteers that will be doing a placement this summer in either Ghana, Malawi, Zambia or Burkina Faso! I am part of the team of 10 volunteers that will be heading to Zambia on May 15th! The conference gave us a great opportunity to share our excitement, fears and hopes, and even though we are now back in our little corner of the country, we are still sharing ideas, thoughts and information via the wonderful world wide web...

En janvier dernier, plus de 700 délégués provenant de partout à travers le pays ont convergé à Montréal pour le Congrès national d'Ingénieurs sans frontières, et parmi eux, 39 délégués faisaient partie de la nouvelle cohorte de volontaires du programme de Junior Fellowship qui entreprendront un stage cet été soit au Ghana, au Malawi, au Zambie ou au Burkina Faso! Je fais partie de l'équipe de 10 volontaires qui s'envoleront au Zambie le 15 mai! Le congrès fut une belle occasion de partager entre nous nos excitations, nos craintes et nos espoirs, et même si nous sommes maintenant de retour dans nos petits coins de pays, nous partageons régulièrement nos idées, pensées et informations grâce au merveilleux monde de l'Internet...