EWB Portland Professionals Build Relationships in Ostiones, Ecuador


Posted by Erin

EWB & ETV Team

As I reflect upon our recent Assessment Trip to Ostiones, Ecuador, my heart is filled with gratitude and a strong desire to see this project through to the end.

The genuine relationships that were established between the six Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Portland Professional members, the staff of our partner NGO, Ecuador Tierra Viva (ETV), and the community members of Ostiones have provided a solid footing upon which this project can proceed.

ETV went above and beyond to ensure that we had as pleasurable and productive of a trip as possible. From providing transportation in the Bisee Book Bus, to ‘prepping the community’ on the EWB process and expectations prior to our arrival, to organizing amazing gatherings for us in both Quito and Ostiones, this was by far the most logistically smooth EWB trip that I’ve been on.

Community Interaction

The people in Ostiones made us feel welcome and we were never short on locals eager to assist us with our data collection tasks. While the children gathered around our land-surveying team, the parents went out of their way to make sure that they were home when our team members came by to conduct the Household Health Surveys. Several of the community leaders took time out of their schedule to accompany Steve Adams and myself on our ‘Surrounding Area Survey,’ which consisted of visiting former water sources, collecting water quality samples, evaluating the topography and landuse, and evaluating the salinity of the Ostiones river. In fact, the community was so eager to make sure that everyone participated in the project that our team was chased down the last day to conduct a Household Health Survey for the final resident who had been out of town.

In addition to our scheduled site assessment tasks, our travel team also took every opportunity to socialize with community members during our week long stay in Ostiones. This included joining the women in their nightly Bingo games, joining the men at the pool hall, playing soccer and swimming in the ocean with the kids, and getting taught to salsa dance by the young men in the community. Even the more structured meetings with the community were often preceded or followed by dancing or socializing of some sort.

Farewell Dance Party

Through these repeated professional and social interactions, our team got to know people on a personal level in a short amount of time. I feel that all parties felt comfortable speaking openly and honestly not only about the community’s needs and our involvement in this water project, but also about our personal lives and ambitions.

We are privileged to be the first foreign volunteers working in this community. Since this is a hard-working fishing community who is not used to hand-outs, nor jaded by failed NGO projects, we have a chance (and in my mind an obligation) to do things right and fortify a ‘sustainable’ project built upon trust and collaboration from the beginning.

Although this will be a technically challenging project, I feel that our assessment team did a fantastic job initiating the groundwork through the development of personal relationships. I think that we all grew as individuals as a result of this shared experience and I personally can’t wait to go back and laugh with my new friends in Ostiones, Ecuador.

 


Anna’s thoughts on disaggregating discussions on ‘International Development’


Posted by Erin

I believe that the term ‘International Development’ is too broad to be a useful category. From our vantage point in the US, does ‘international development’ include the status and changes in every other country in every sector from gender issues, economic development, transportation, energy, water, environment, media, urban planning, agriculture, healthcare, etc? Or only when there is involvement of a non-profit, bank, company or government from the wealthier countries pushing for changes does it become ‘international’ development?

I often hear debates on whether international development has ultimately improved the world or the opposite. But, I feel that aggregating all international development and judging the sum of all of these actions is not very useful. The World Bank’s development activities are radically different from the grassroots locally-formed NGOs that Green Empowerment works with. These NGOs were founded by people who got together and decided to try and improve the lives of their communities and their country. This is the equivalent to community development organizations and non-profits in the US.

In Spain, instead of using the term ‘international development’ it is more common to hear ‘cooperacion internacional’, a term that I prefer. Green Empowerment’s philosophy is to build cooperation between NGOs and catalyze their own leadership to make the changes they envision for their communities.

 

Anna Garwood is the Executive Director at Green Empowerment, a Portland based non-profit that provides villages in the developing world access to clean water, electricity through renewable energy, and sustainable solutions.


‘Sustainable Development’


Posted by Erin

A term that is perhaps even more ambiguous than ‘International Development’. To me they have a similar meaning but the ‘sustainable’ term transfers some of the emphasis from the human component to the environmental resource and financial component. ‘Sustainable’ also ads an aspect of time that can be overlooked in discussions on international affairs.

Here is the definition of Sustainable Development provided by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987:

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

That’s a good attempt, but WHO is it that defines these needs? And HOW Do we meet those needs? The World Bank Group’s website encourages one to reflect upon competing needs within their own lives and within society at large. They suggest that the ability to meet the needs of the future depends on how well we balance social, economic, and environmental objectives when making decisions in the present.

I agree but this is a big challenge and there is no standard way of solving it. The harsh reality is that many development projects come up short and projects are left unfinished or quickly become non-functional.

Every organization has a different way of approaching ‘project sustainability’ in their curriculum. What are some of the ways that your group attempts to make projects meet the needs of future generations?