Building on the Doctors without Borders organization are two organizations: Science without Borders and Engineers without Borders.
Science Without Borders:
Scientists may not provide emergency relief in times of disaster, but the discipline has a major role to play in meeting the chronic needs of our planet: health, agriculture, environment, energy, and many more. By creating Scientists Without Borders, the Academy aims to facilitate synergies among institutions already committed to the UN Millennium Development Goals as well as to unleash the energy of thousands of scientists in academia and industry. With the benefit of the best and most current information, they can apply their efforts to training health workers and researchers in developing countries or devote part of their research efforts to address underserved global challenges.
Engineers Without Borders (USA):
The activities of EWB-USA range from the construction of sustainable systems that developing communities can own and operate without external assistance, to empowering such communities by enhancing local, technical, managerial, and entrepreneurial skills. These projects are initiated by, and completed with, contributions from the host community working with our project teams.
Related: Engineers without Borders - International - Clean Water Filter
January 30th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
The University of Missouri-Rolla has a young, but very active EWB chapter. They’ve been to Bolivia and Guatemala and have four trips planned for this year alone. If you’re interested it seeing what they’ve accomplished, check out http://web.umr.edu/~cewb/ .
April 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
“You cannot look into the eyes of a child who is dying from a disease caused by drinking dirty water — something that rarely, if ever, happens in the United States — and not feel changed. You cannot stand before her parents without thinking, ‘I’m an engineer. There must be something I can do.’”