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WatchOver the course of three weeks three of our staff Jillian Robinson (Sydney), Vivien Foo (Singapore) and Hannah Sharp (Adelaide) travelled throughout urban and rural India alongside Engineers without Borders on the Development Education and Leadership Experience (DELE) Program. Our staff were sponsored by Arup’s Community Partnering Program.
The group comprised 14 engineering professionals from corporate Australia led by staff from Engineers without Borders (EWB) and the Centre for Social Response (CSR). The program took the group through big cities, tiny villages and many places in between where they met strong and passionate people working to create lasting change for marginalised communities around the country. It was inspiring to hear their stories, challenges, successes and ongoing aspirations and get a real feel for what development work is all about.
Learning a variety of skills
The program was a diverse mixture of experiential learning – days in the “classroom” were coupled with debrief sessions, workshops and project visits. Some of the highlights included:
- Nadukuppam School where the environment is part of their daily education,
- Exnora Green Pummel a waste management company that creates employment and products from waste,
- Liberate Schools run by the Lokpanchayat organisation, empower children to enact change within their own communities.
- Santulan, an organisation working to better the lives of quarry workers and their families
- BAIF, an organisation located at a mountainous countryside to help tribal villages improve their skills and technology in agriculture
Team Experiences
“We were quickly overwhelmed by how much we had to learn” – Hannah Sharp, Arup in Adelaide
“It’s tempting to walk through a village and think “solar power would be great here!” or “why don’t we build some toilets for these people?” – but one of the most important learning for me was that in development, it is really important to drop all our perceptions and agendas.” – Jillian Robinson, Arup in Sydney
“Listen to the key words that communities use when talking about their lives to understand what is important.” – Jillian Robinson, Arup in Sydney
“The whole trip was hugely inspiring, and absolutely eye-opening; there was more than one occasion where I was blown away by something someone said, or did that completely changed my view on a particular topic and made me question what I thought I knew.” – Hannah Sharp, Arup in Adelaide
“I remember distinctly about a man we spoke to at Pitchandikulam Forest where he mentioned when they dig a pit and use the sand there to build the bricks for a house they were building, the pit formed also served as a pit for rainwater harvesting. It made me realise that more things could be achieved by innovating and thinking things through right from the start. Less energy will be wasted and things can be done more efficiently and in a more sustainably” – Vivien Foo, Arup Singapore
Humanitarian engineering is complex. But small voluntary community organisations in developing countries are creating change and bringing hope in the lives of many people. Our staff were actively engaged and encouraged to learn from the experience of these organisations in order to build a deeper understanding of the role technology and engineering play in community development and change processes. How can we utilise this learning back home in Australia?
To be successful in community development, you need to understand the context in which you are working and listen to capture the self-identified needs of the community – this will guide the solutions we can provide. There is no equivalent to taking the time to build relationships with the community and recognise the multitude of influences, stakeholders and complexities that are involved. Arup is adept at working collaboratively across multiple disciplines on complex projects. Can we apply this thinking and humanitarian engineering to problems facing third world communities?
