ABOUT
Our Vision
Our vision is a world in which all communities have the capacity to meet their basic human needs.
Our Mission
Engineers Without Borders – USA supports community-driven development programs worldwide through the design and implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while fostering responsible leadership.
Engineers Without Borders – USA
Engineers Without Borders – USA (EWB) is a volunteer non-profit humanitarian organization that partners with communities in “developing” areas of the world in order to improve on their quality of life through sustainable engineering projects and community education. Started in 2000 at the University of Colorado by a few students and faculty, EWB has since grown to include over 250 professional and student chapters nationwide with 12,000 members and over 350 projects in 45 countries. Because of its strong university presence, EWB serves as a catalyst for a movement to educate the next generation of engineers to be socially conscious and deeply aware of the needs of the rest of the world. Typical projects include water, renewable energy, sanitation, structures, and more.
Central to any EWB project is sustainability- all work implemented in the partner community must be a long-term solution which can be maintained and ideally replicated by the community itself. Community participation is encouraged at all stages of the project to develop a sense of ownership and to educate and empower the partner community. EWB makes every effort to maintain a minimum five-year commitment to a partner community. EWB also partners with a locally-based non-governmental organization for the duration of the project to ensure all work is culturally sensitive, for on-the-ground assistance with project planning and logistics, and to serve as a conduit for communications with the partner community. EWB-USA is a registered 501(c)3 corporation.
Engineers Without Borders – Los Angeles Professional Partners
The Los Angeles Professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders – USA was established in the spring of 2005 and began with a Tsunami Reconstruction project on the southeast coast of India after the December 2004 tsunami. EWB-LA currently has a number of active international engineering projects, provides professional mentors for the UCLA, USC, and LMU student EWB chapters, and participates in the Los Angeles community through local outreach activites.
To learn more about what EWB-LA has been doing, please browse our past chapter newsletters: