Engineers Without Borders
Opens Windows on World

November 19, 2003

By Andrew Vowles

A Frisbee. That's the one item Clinton Reynolds told the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) selection committee he'd take overseas if he were picked for a volunteer internship in a developing country. The Guelph student ended up packing two Frisbees, which he says helped as icebreakers with boys in the Indonesian village where he worked this summer.

Reynolds, now in his third year of environmental engineering at Guelph, used his first trip abroad to help design a demonstration system in solid-waste management. He lived and worked in the village of Jogjakarta, about an hour's plane flight from the capital, Jakarta.

He was one of about nine Canadian students who travelled to developing countries this summer under a new EWB internship program called Operation 21. The program is intended to send a member from each of the organization's 21 Canadian chapters to overseas destinations each summer to help with international development projects.

"I've always been interested in world issues, but to tell the truth, I didn't know much about international development," says Reynolds.

While in Indonesia, he helped design and build a solid-waste management system as a demonstration site for villagers. After researching such things as what kinds of waste were produced and who normally handles waste disposal in typical households, he devised a system to separate paper and plastic and to collect material for composting.

With about 60 per cent of household waste consisting of organic materials, composting turned out to be a key component of the system. Ordinarily, people burn their refuse or dump it. He designed a three-bin system that could handle about 20 cubic metres of waste at a time, producing compost within a month.

Systems like this are scarce in Indonesia, the world's third-most populous country. Some 100 million people live on the main island of Java alone.

Reynolds also worked on organic farming practices intended to help farmers develop sustainable agriculture. "The biggest environmental problem I saw in Indonesia was not technology but environmental awareness," he says.

Back in Canada, he's determined to apply what he learned, perhaps in another international development project.

Modelled after the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, the Engineers Without Borders program in Canada began in 2000. There are about 3,700 members across the country. The charity organization's goal is to teach engineers and engineering students about international development.

During the past two years, more than 60 young Canadian engineers have visited 20 countries to help with projects in water and sanitation, agriculture and food processing, energy, and information and communications technology.

Reynolds joined the U of G chapter last year. He is vice-president, research and projects, for the chapter, which began in 2001.

Biological engineering student Jason Pearman is this year's co-president (external) for the Guelph chapter. He says a key lesson for Canadian students placed through this summer's program is that "just providing technology is not the answer. Many sociopolitical factors must also be addressed. Clinton's experience has definitely reaffirmed the importance EWB places on capacity building through appropriate technology."