Engineers Without Borders â USA (EWBâÂÂUSA) is a non-profit humanitarian organization. It represents the United States within the larger international Engineers Without Borders organization. Within the U.S., the organization focuses on sustainable engineering projects with both local and international communities, while involving and training professional engineers and students.
Engineers Without Borders â USA (EWB-USA) was born from a chance meeting of Bernard Amadei (a professor of civil engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder), and Angel Tzec (a representative of the Belize Ministry of Agriculture). Tzec's village in Belize was in a difficult situation because it had no running water or sanitation. Tzec invited Dr. Amadei to visit his village in Belize, where he saw how laborious a task it was for the villagers to gather water. "I came across little girls who had to carry water back and forth to the village all day, so they couldn't go to school", Amadei says. "I knew that as a civil engineer, there had to be something I could do."
In 2002, Amadei returned with eight University of Colorado Boulder students and a local civil engineer, also from Boulder. With the help of the local community, they installed a clean water system powered by a waterfall in the area for less than $15,000. It was from this experience that Dr. Amadei came to see that he could utilize professional and student engineers to improve the quality of life in other development projects around the world.
In 2010, EWBâÂÂUSA received the Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology from the National Building Museum. In a statement from the prize jury, by Art Gensler said, "This organization gives locals hope and talented engineering professionals the opportunity to share their knowledge with countries that can so greatly benefit from their efforts."