Learning & Change

 I’ve seen complex water systems that stopped working because the community had no-one locally who understood the design.

At Engineers Without Borders (EWB) our strategy to affect change through appropriate and sustainable development is twofold: to work with communities, and promote learning and change in our own community.

In my last blog, The Four Cs, I talked about working with communities, and here I’d like to talk about one of the ways we’re promoting learning and change.

I’ve heard about expensive fridges, donated to communities for storing vaccines, being used as bookshelves because they didn’t run on the local electricity voltage. A very expensive bookshelf by anyone’s standards.

The Four C’s

When international aid deploys innappropriate technology, there can be unwanted, or even disastrous consequences.

No, this is not a guide to buying an engagement ring.

When I read this article recounting the story of a premature baby dying in a bed amidst a ward crowded with empty incubators, I was appalled but couldn’t share in the journalist’s dismay. Sadly, I recognised it as yet another example of inappropriate technology being deployed to useless or even damaging effect. 

Maybe the user manuals weren’t provided, or they were written in a language nobody at the hospital understood. Maybe the specialist heat generating light bulbs had all blown and couldn’t be replaced?

At Engineers Without Borders (EWB) we talk about the Four C’s to Development; consciousness, concern, comprehension and challenge.