Engineers Without Borders
McGill University
Introduction
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Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is a Canadian NGO that is helping to accelerate development in Africa, while raising awareness within the Canadian society on policy matters and other social issues. Its approach is to create systemic change by investing in people and providing them with opportunities to unlock their potential. EWB collaborates with individuals, businesses, organizations and governments to help them reach their own development goals.
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The McGill chapter of EWB is one of 35+ student chapters across Canada. The chapter pursues various activities surrounding fair trade, advocacy, and youth engagement on campus with the goal to challenge the status quo in international development. One of our recent accomplishments was leading the effort to certify McGill as the first Fair Trade Campus in Quebec.
My Role
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As the president of EWB McGill, I was responsible for leading the chapter & executive team and overseeing all activities involving fair trade, advocacy, and youth engagement. I coordinated with the EWB national office, other university chapters, and related non-profits to organize collaborations and conferences.
Fair Trade
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To explore the fundamentals of fair trade, EWB McGill partnered up with the Anou Cooperative – an organization in Morocco empowering local artisans and supporting their trade. It is owned and managed by Morocco's artisan community and is open to all authentic artisans committed to quality and transparency.
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Hosting our event over Zoom, we helped participants to understand the differences between fair trade in Canada vs. Abroad, while encouraging them to ask questions to the artisans themselves – who work at the ground-level to support Anou and cater to consumer needs across the world. Additionally, inquiries were made towards Anou's supply chain and current efforts in entering the North American market.
Advocacy
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As an introduction to our club, we hosted EWBasics: an event to advocate for our mission while helping new members integrate within the club.
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We also took part in EWB Canada’s Advocacy Campaign, “Meet My Monster”, which focused on increasing awareness regarding the impact of COVID-19. This event presented an opportunity for participants to share their own stories and learn from others while completing a questionnaire to track the impact of the virus.
Afterwards, participants collaborated to write a letter to the Minister of Finance of Canada to increase development assistance to help those most impacted by the pandemic.
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To understand the impact of COVID-19 on the other EWB Chapters, we compared our monster to those of other chpaters.