International Education Through Engineers Without Borders

The University of Tulsa started a chapter of Engineers Without Borders -USA (EWB-USA) in the fall of 2006.EWB is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life.This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects while involving and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students.The EWB-USA project application process requires that the students educate themselves about their partner international community.The questions span a broad range.For example, the application requires them to list the positive and negative impacts (economic, environmental, social, cultural, and ecosystem) their project will have on the community.They must describe local construction techniques and what skills they have that the community does not have.The students must describe the beneficiary group(s) in terms of ethnicity, tribal and religious affiliations, spatial organization, primary occupations, current income, and decision-making structures of all the sub-groups.They need to know the local culture, customs, and hazards.The students must convince EWB-USA that they know enough about the area for EWB-USA to approve the project.The processes of EWB-USA require the students to get an international engineering education-education about their specific international people group combined with engineering knowledge for their specific project.