We are a group of professionals passionate about creating a sustainable world where engineering enables long-term positive social and global development for the benefit of people and the environment everywhere. EWB-USA is a national volunteer organization that supports community-driven development programs worldwide by collaborating with local partners to design and implement sustainable engineeri
ng projects. EWB-USA projects are implemented by its individual local based chapters, including EWB-VT. We're scheduled to install 6 irrigation systems for
coffee farmers' home gardens in Colombia this November, and we're hoping to recruit folks willing to travel, as well as folks who are interested in the prep work which is mostly developing culturally appropriate installation/maintenance manuals to empower local communities to build and maintain these systems. The main purpose of this project is food sovereignty for coffee farmers - we work with local nonprofit Food 4 Farmers as well as partners in Colombia to enable coffee farmers to grow diverse, nutritious food for their families year-round. These home gardens are particularly important in between coffee harvests (i.e. times of cashflow), which also happens to be the dry season, making irrigation of these gardens a crucial component to their sustained success. Not a problem at all. Anyone passionate about supporting food sovereignty/coffee farmers/climate change adaptation in rural agriculture would be a huge asset to our group. In fact, skills like fundraising, grant writing, marketing, community outreach/education, would add critical value that we're currently missing. EWB-VT is a small but mighty group of folks who care deeply about truly sustainable (i.e. affordable, culturally informed/relevant, easily replicable, focus on community engagement and empowerment) international projects. We also regularly volunteer locally, and honestly we just have a lot of fun together. Our meetings include beers and snacks and lots of laughs.
