We will have chapter updates followed by our guest lecturer Olabukunola ” Buky” Williams of Global Solutions Pittsburgh. Buky will lecture topic is “International Development 101″

Global Solutions is an independent 501(c)(3) educational organization, is the local affiliate of Citizens For Global Solutions, a national organization working toward global solutions to global problems. Their Vision is a future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone.
www.globalsolutionspgh.org

Next General Meeting & Lecture Series:

Time: February 16th 2010 (rescheduled from Feb’9th), Tuesday, 8PM-9:30PM

Venue: University of Pittsburgh, School of Engineering, Benedum Hall Room 157

Guest Speaker: Emily Knarr, Team Supervisor - Pittsburgh Refugee Center

Ms. Knarr’s lecture will address who refugees are and where they come from. She will discuss the difference between immigrants and refugees, and her own personal experiences working with refugees. Ms. Knarr inform us about the challenges refugees face in their home countries, host countries, and the new struggles when they arrive in America, and the hope for a better future that motivates all the families.

I am sending this email to request your support for our Engineers Without Borders (EWB) - Pittsburgh Chapter (www.ewb-pitt.org) Project in Ecuador.  Please note that there are no obligations attached to this request.  If you choose to participate in this endeavor, then please read on.

Please support this great cause for a tiny community located in Tingo Pucara, Ecuador.  We need at least 50 unique donors (separate names, emails and separate MasterCard/Visa accounts) to raise a total of $4000 by September 18th, 2009. Once this criterion has been met, EWB will achieve a permanent place on the GlobalGiving website.  This will enable us to post all future projects on an ongoing basis.  GlobalGiving website is a fantastic platform for fund raising opportunity. 

Please follow the link below to donate as well as for details relating to our project.  Please note that the website starts at a $50 donation level. However, you may start your donation from $10. Please note that you may donate money online using a credit card or by a personal check.

I would greatly appreciate it if you can share this link with all your friends via email, Facebook etc. to generate the targeted donors as well as the desired amount.  GlobalGiving will award an additional $2000 for projects associated with maximum unique donors.

So, please spread the word - time is short - must meet the deadline of September 18th.

http://www.globalgiving.com/projects/tingopucara/

Thank you for all your help and consideration!

Tom Baker

For complete details, see attachment or contact Krista Sponsky (PR Specialist) at 814-472-7700.

Kimball 5K Challenge Registration Form

The Unviersity of Pittsburgh’s Engineers Without Borders & The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra cordially invites you for a night to relax benefiting University of Pittsburgh’s Chapter on March 19th, 2009 from 7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. This will be a great opportunity to network with the area Engineering Companies and Professionals! Ticket pricing will be $35 to attend the symphony and reception; $15 for students.

To purchase tickets or to sponsor this event, please contact Ben Zaczek at ewb.pso.event@gmail.com

*Special thanks to Adrive for sponsoring this event.

Join us for an exciting evening reception and learn about the how you can help us uplift the world. Click on the above image(pdf link) for details.
Click here for a text-only version of the Event flyer.

presents

“Building a Better World”

Live Music, Auctions, International
Arts & Crafts sale and more!!!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Your Inner Vagabond

4130 Butler St. @ 42nd, Lawrenceville, PA 15201

http://www.yourinnervagabond.com/

$7 Suggested Donation – $5 with Valid Student ID

Open to All Ages, BYOB

Experience the jet lag as you are lifted from Pittsburgh and transported to Mali or Ecuador.
Integrate into the different cultures through the photographs, art work, live music and crafts.
Join Engineers Without Borders, Pittsburgh Professional & Student Chapters, for an evening
filled with tales of engineering making a difference in the corners of the world.

You can make a difference too!

Engineers Without Borders - Building a Better World. One Community at a Time

As we walk off the plane into what is the smallest commercial airport I have ever seen, in Bamako, Mali’s capital, a couple of “airport workers” kindly bombard us and help take our luggage to the van. We meet our translator, Sekou Camara, just outside. We also meet Kyle Lotier, the Peace Corps volunteer from Makili and another Sekou who claims to be our translator. It turns out that the men who helped us with our bags are in disguise. Conspiring with the first man who falsely identified himself as Sekou, they attempt to extort fifty dollars for carrying our luggage a couple hundred feet. I offer them one dollar as they argue in Bambara, the native language of Mali. Hurrying eleven people into the eighteen-seat van (about the same size as a seven-seater in the U.S.), we blast out of the airport to join the hordes of motorcycles that scattered about the highway. Its 2 am.

Some people are sitting, listening to loud music alongside the road, while tons of others sleep on the ground as we drive to the hotel. It is certainly clear how Mali can be rated one of the poorest countries in the world. Garbage is strewn everywhere. Stores are made out of tied-together sticks and aluminum siding. Stagnant, stinking, uncovered sewers line the streets everywhere.

In Bamako we visit the Peace Corps Office, stock up on water for the 110+ degree weather and make two more trips to the airport to retrieve Emma and Krishnan. We then head north to Segou, a market town about one hundred kilometers from Makili, the village in which we intend to build a fish farm. There we rendezvous with an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) we contacted before leaving for Africa. They intend EWB to fund them while they build a fish farm. We start to realize how difficult our undertaking was with the language barriers, cultural differences and different business rules. Working with Sekou to translate, we explain that EWB is not a funding agency. Next, we visit a few fish farms already operating in Mali to learn best practices and head over to our village, Makili.

I have never felt so welcome anywhere in my life, especially in a place that very much resembled 5,000 B.C.E., except equipped with motorcycles, bicycles and cell phones. The people of Makili are thrilled to have us here, excited about us helping them in whichever way possible. The children follow us everywhere- smiling, laughing and posing for pictures. Even as we take sitting breaks in Kyle’s hut between the topographical surveys and family interviews, children are hanging on the walls, peering over the side into the lives of seven foreigners (Marty, Mike, Suman, Krishnan, Vicky, Emma and me).

Meetings with the chief, village elders, a women’s group, teachers, health clinic and individual families tell us that the main problems of the community are education and income. Most believe that the surplus of fish created from a fish farm will help build a stronger economy for the community. This will eventually enable more families to pay for their children to attend school.

As we thank the chief for all the hospitality he and his villagers have given us, he tells us that not only may we have the appropriate land to help them build their fish farm, we will also have a plot of land awaiting our own quarters for trips to come. We spend eight days in a land foreign in just about every way possible, but we leave with Makili as our second home.

[Jeff Fein is a Physics student at the University of Pittsburgh and is a member of EWB-Pitt chapter. He traveled with the team to Mali on the site assesment trip on May, 2008. He is passionate about teaching kids. Jeff can be reached at jrf39@pitt.edu. To learn more about this project and how you can help, click here. ]

The Mali Travel Team (Suman Ramasundaram, Marty Taube, Mike Bozek, Emma Baillargeon, Victoria Kennedy and Jeff Fein) will be taking the donations on May 2nd as part of the first Site Assessment. Much thanks to the big hearts of Mrs. Conroy’s class.

Other EWB members opened their hearts too and sent in clothes and medicines. Thank you!