In 2000, two engineering undergraduates finished their studies and asked themselves “What do we do now?” But the most important question to them was, “how can we put ourselves to good use in order to serve society?” Out of these questions, and the burning desire to do something other than an office job, Engineers Without Borders (EWB) was created. Students across Canada are now involved in this organization, which aims to improve the lives of rural Africans by taking action in Africa and in Canada. Students are at the core of the operation, bringing innovation, energy, and motivation to drive change. Students are also crucial in uniting the organization’s two parts: the African part and the Canadian part. Their experiences shed some light on the strength of the connection between McGill students and many rural Africans, young and old, who fight hard to finish basic schooling all while earning money for their families by harvesting and selling vegetables. The following are stories from this summer’s Junior Fellows.
Bailey Greenspon, U3 International Development Studies, Youth Leadership, Ghana
After telling my friend that I had spent the summer in Ghana, he asked me whether my parents lived there or if I was doing voluntourism. Why were these my only two options? People often dump on development and its workers. I can understand why, and I even used to do it, until I went to Ghana and became a development worker myself. While I may not object to many development organizations, I’ve discovered that we really don’t know much about anything: we in the West can’t figure out what actions are right and which are wrong.
This past May as I was settling down in the northern village of Sagnarigu and becoming familiar with the Dagombas, my host family. I felt that women were subjugated in Ghana, and I saw an unequal division of labour and submissiveness. Naively, I assumed this meant that Ghanaians were wrong and Canadians were right. Female empowerment was black and white. Thinking it was my duty to enlighten my new friends, I tried to start conversations with my host sisters about the issue I saw. I wanted to rock their worlds. As it turns out, my sister Illy changed mine. I asked her why she wasn’t looking for a husband yet at the age of 20 and she explained that women who are dependent on their husbands are, in so many words, screwed. I squeezed her hand, overjoyed to hear these wise words. Illy is studying for her hairdressing certificate so she can open a small business. That way, when she gets married she can be self-sufficient. Confused, I asked why she still cooks for her older brothers but won’t eat with them. Illy laughed the question off; it was irrelevant. Illy has taught me that empowerment isn’t as simple as freedom versus servitude. Being a married woman in Ghana won’t deny all tenets of feminism. Trying to understand and operate in another culture, I then realized, would be over my head.
At times I wanted to quit development forever. Not knowing what to do can become haunting. In July, I was interviewing Fati. She was about 40 years old. Her kids were everywhere. She invited the translator and I into her hut, hiding from the burning midday sun. I wanted to know how an Engineers Without Borders program had affected her, and how her husband felt about her business. The translator shook his head. Her husband was dead. Instinctively, I apologized in Dagbani. We went outside and I could see that the compound was falling apart. Ghanaians normally disguise poverty behind such a high wall of pride and dignity. During two months in Ghana I had not seen such obvious signs of poverty as a collapsed roof. I moved on, asking if she increased rice production in the last year. She pointed to her leg. The translator told me it had been causing her too much pain to farm. She described the symptoms and it sounded like arthritis. I felt tense. She said something, and the translator laughed, shaking his head. I pushed to find out what she said, and finally the translator relented. “She wants medicine. She asks that you should send medicine from your place.” I asked what kind of medicine. They didn’t know, just something to make the pain go away. I reminded myself that this isn’t sustainable; that at EWB we don’t do handouts. Overcome with guilt and confusion, I ended the interview abruptly and returned to my compound, where my host sister had prepared lunch.
I spent three months in Ghana and all I learned is that I know nothing. It now seems silly to think that I could decide that this NGO is good while that student trip is bad. All we can do as a society is keep asking questions, always being critical, and push the right people to be just as critical, so we can get things right.
Vivian Mau, U3 Bioresource Engineering, Water and Sanitation, Malawi
I am sitting in the back of a pickup truck riding along a dusty dirt road winding its way up the mountains to bring me to Chikwina, my host village. Once I arrive, I familiarize myself with the place where I will be living and working from May to August. Brick houses with thatched roofs are spread along the hillsides of the mountains. Maize and cassava fields line the valleys where streams run. Electricity only reaches a handful of households, and safe drinking water is only found in boreholes. The main dirt road cuts across this setting, connecting to the main market, the elementary school, the church, the football pitch, and the health clinic. I came to this community in Northern Malawi with an objective: to understand what really happens on the ground when Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is implemented. CLTS is used mainly in rural areas in Asia and Africa to motivate communities to take action against the spread of diarrheal diseases, which leads to millions of unnecessary deaths every year.
Maria, who spends her summers harvesting and selling tomatoes and cabbages, is risking death from poor sanitation. The community where she lives has already come a long way in preventing the spread of diarrheal diseases, which spread when humans come in contact with feces through contaminated water or food, or through flies carrying germs from the feces to the food. Latrines can stop humans from accidentally ingesting these germs and becoming sick. Maria’s family has a latrine, as do all her neighbors. But latrines are not enough; washing hands after latrine use is a crucial step. Without running water, they need to construct a simple facility using a bucket and a cup to scoop water and wash their hands. These are rare in Maria’s home, her school, or the market where she sells her vegetables. If you ask her about hand washing, she will explain its importance. Des
pite this knowledge, few people use these facilities.
Maria and the average student have something in common. If we substitute using latrines with brushing teeth, and washing hands with flossing regularly, her story is more familiar. Brushing teeth is simple, but flossing is a different story. Usually after visiting the dentist you are able to floss a little more regularly, but the new habit is easily forgotten. It’s different, it’s time consuming, and many people wonder if it will make a difference. For Maria, using the hand washing facilities is the same thing: not part of her routine, time consuming, and not obviously beneficial.
The challenge in this community is to help Maria and her friends, family, and neighbors to adopt this new behavior. At the center of this problem are individuals’ decisions. More money going to dentists will not make you floss regularly, so why would simply investing more money into the development sector close the gap in sanitation?
Pascal G. Richard, U3 Bioresource Engineering, Agriculture, Ghana
Arriving in a rural village in Northern Ghana, I was overwhelmed by the heat and the sun, but mostly by the food. Almost all the meals are corn-based, protein is scarce, and there are no opportunities to eat between meals. I figured this would be manageable, but that was before I tried farming. In the savannah of West Africa, farming is at the center of people’s livelihoods. It is engrained in the culture by tradition, and forced upon them by the need to feed onself.
There is one growing season, the end and beginning which are dictated by the rains. Not many farmers are able to build up their savings, and most of the season’s harvest is eaten or sold at the local market. At the end of the dry season, when last year’s supplies are running low, there is less food to come by and more work to be done. People grow lean and alert, aware of the hardships ahead. Some rely on God, but most pick up their hoes and plough the fields tirelessly. As Abass would say, “it’s not easy.”
Abass is my best friend in the village. He gave me a small plot which I dedicated to yams and soybeans. The farming would often make me weak and dizzy from hunger. Abass completed junior high school, a level very rarely obtained in the village. It is his dream to move on in his studies, but the fees for senior high are out of reach. What’s more, it is now his son’s turn to go to school.
For most men like Abass, the rainy season arrives at a time when money is scarce. This means that farmers can not hire tractors, buy fertilizers, herbicides, and seeds. At first glance, this problem could be solved by a small loan at the beginning of the farming season that would be paid back upon harvest. In Canada, banks lend more money to farmers than to anyone else. But we have tractors and we have insurance. In Ghana, yields are as unpredictable as the rains upon which they depend. Access to technology and the best agricultural practices is limited. Banks are not ready to commit to uncertainty and so they prefer to abstain from lending to farmers.
Some local private entrepreneurs saw this challenge as an opportunity; they tried to make a profit by providing ploughing services to farmers in exchange for part of the harvest. For each acre ploughed at the beginning of the season, the farmer must pay a 100-kilogram bag of maize. The surplus bags can then be kept for consumption or, if the yields were good, sold to the same company who will transport them to processing.
This summer, I worked with two local agriculture businesses providing this service. Supporting the private sector in agriculture links farmers to a market, providing them with the help they need to escape subsistence farming and food insecurity. My role was to find out what the challenges were which prevented the companies from investing more in their farmers.
In Canada, it can be easy to demonize the private sector, but in rural Ghana, agribusinesses have an incentive in seeing farmers increase their production. Donor funding is easy to spend, especially in NGO projects where the staff is only accountable to the donor, and not to the farmers. With the help of businesses, people like Abass might be able to save enough money, enabling him to plough and plant without a loan, and maybe even to send his children, or himself, to school.
