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Engineers without Borders - Impact in the Community

On the page: Engineers without Borders

Researchers have identified different levels of community member participation, such as passive participation, initiative and leadership, and decision making in projects across the globe. In order to have a true impact, students, professionals, and communities are given clearly identified roles for their participation in the project. The students' role is to be open and willing to learn from the problems at hand and the methodologies used in the projects. Professional engineers are expected to fill the role of technical experts in the used methods and to communicate with students and community members. The communities are given the role of communicating with the assisting engineers and are actively encouraged to take participatory and leadership roles in the decision making of the project methodology. Education is a major part of Engineers without Borders and all participants are expected to learn from one another. There are three levels of participation with Engineers without Borders: low (monetary contribution), middle (manual labor), and high (decision making and leadership positions), and all are considered to be important for the projects to be successful.

Most Engineers Without Borders projects focus on water and deal with sanitation,  distribution, and management. One example of a completed water project is the River Basin Management project in Palestine. River management can be very important in situations where the river provides the only source of drinking water. Projects of this nature can be extremely difficult, as the presence of biological barriers can prevent workers from making major environmental changes, which can in turn make it difficult to quantify the effectiveness of Engineers without Borders projects.