EWB kicks off Bricks for Burere

As EWB-UC ramps up its efforts to begin implementation of its second major project, the organization hopes to close the gap in its monetary needs through a truly exciting event in Bricks for Burere.

What: A fundraising event to help raise money to build the walls of the Kingigoro Primary School in Burere, Tanzania. Most students currently learn in collapsing classrooms - or must have class outside due to an already collapsed classroom.

When: September 19th - October 16th (last day of Homecoming week), the "brick wall" will begin construction at the start of October.

Where: Lobby of the Rec Center (where the old smoothie stand used to be)

How: For every donation, a brick will be given to the donator to be decorated and returned to EWB to be placed in the wall. Pricing is as follows:

One Brick, Student = $2

One Brick, Non-Student = $5

Family Brick (4 Bricks) = $20

Student Organization Brick (3x3) = $30

**Families and Organizations can purchase another row/column of bricks for $20 per added dimension.

Companies are being contacted to match on campus support.

EWB cannot not wait to demonstrate the support and encouragement found in its own university through this event.

Be on the look out for EWB's wall!

June EWBer of the Month: Linea Olsson

Congratulations to Linea Olsson for being our June EWBer of the Month.

Linea just finished her first year in Chemical Engineering, and an actually international student from Sweden. She has definitely earned this award many times over, being one of our most active freshman in the group. She's shown incredible dedication and initiative, forming partnerships with the professional practice office and becoming one of our youngest exec board members.

Probably the best example of this initiative was Linea traveling on our recent Burere assessment trip to Tanzania. She helped perform crucial soil and material tests needed to move our school design forward. She also help gain final measurement data from the school site. Finally she interacted with members of the community and helped strengthen our partnership with Burere.We look forward to much more from Linea in the coming years.

Click here to see more photos of Linea from our Assessment Trip

Linea & Jim taking measurements inside the Burere school

A Successful Burere Assessment

EWB-UC is proud to have completed a very successful assessment trip for the Kingigoro primary school project in Burere, Tanzania. The information gathered on this trip will be vital for the review of the project this coming autumn. Pending approval and successful fundraising, the team hopes for approval to begin construction in Tanzania this coming winter.

A special thank you is in order for Tom Bible who, without having had a major role in the first stages of the project, offered to be our mentor on this trip. His help was immensely helpful as we gathered data and we are happy that he is interested in continued support of the design.

The trip was an amazing growing experience. I'm very happy that my term as president of EWB-UC could start with such a moving event in my life. I hope that everyone will keep up with Blueprints and http://ewb-uc.org/ this summer to hear some of the stories from the trip as well as news about the Burere project as it nears design completion. It feels great to be home, but the work to help the Burere community construct their new school continues!

May EWBer of the Month: Brittany Dexter

Congratulations to Brittany Dexter for being our May EWBer of the Month. Brittany worked hard as a member of the design committee to make all the materials we used at our banquet. From the invitations to the little table-tents, we got great feedback on how well everything was designed.

Especially important was Brittany's work on the EWB newsletter. She revised our design to fit with our national logo and helped give our newsletter the reboot that it needed. You can find our latest newsletter here. 

Also, congratulations for Brittany on graduating this year with her degree in Graphic Design from DAAP. Thanks Brittany, we wish you all the best!

EWB Banquet a Huge Success

Thank you to everyone who attended our Spring Banquet last Thursday. We received an incredible amount of positive feedback, and we're already looking forward to making it better for next year. We had notable speakers such as Provost Santa Ono and Student Body President Alan Hagerty attend and speak to the integral part EWB plays to UC. We also had our keynote speaker, Keith Zook, coordinator of P&G's Children's Safe Drinking Water Program demonstrate the power of clean water firsthand, using their PUR packets. After purifying muddy water to crystal-clear drinking water, members and our speakers made a toast using the newly cleaned water. (pictured above)

We also had several of our partners there, such as Chris Lewis, founder of Village Life Outreach Project and Raj Mehta, the director of UC's Honors Program. Finally, thanks to our faculty mentors and advisors; Dr. Dan Durbin for Burere, Dr. George Suckarieh from Burere, and Dr. Margeret Kupferle who is our dedicated organization advisor. On top of the countless hours they spend advising the group, it was great to have them attend our banquet.

Jim Moyer, our new president, also gave an overview of our future plans for EWB. You can view the whole presentation here. We talked about our upcoming trip to Burere in under 2 weeks, as well as our next trip scheduled for Winter of this year, where we plan to start construction of the Burere school. We also showed our plan for Nyambogo, with a final assessment trip and design selection planned within a year. Finally, we showed how we intend to transfer knowledge from Burere's school to Otho Abwao's and begin construction in Spring of 2012. We also highlighted new successes outside of our traditional projects, such as our new Future Cities after school tutoring program.


On top of all the presentations and speakers, we had some fun as well. We raffled off several prizes, both souvenirs from past EWB trips and shirts, scarves and blankets screen-printed with our EWB logo. We also had a delicious dinner and desert. (special thanks to Classic Fare catering for reducing the price per plate as a donation) In the end, we're incredibly excited that all the hard work we put into the event paid off. We've said it dozens of times, but thank you to everyone who attended and to all the EWBers for all the hard work you put in to make this happen. We look foraward to seeing you all here again at next year's banquet.

Click here to view all the Banquet photos