Humanitarian assistance or disaster relief?
The images of people suffering from disasters, protracted hardship or victims of conflicts are heart-wrenching. Our immediate reaction is to help in any way we can. And there is no doubt that engineering skills are useful in such situations – finding access to water for new refugee camps, setting up temporary housing, arranging logistics and other tasks. There is also a strong argument that the involvement of westerners in disaster relief is more clear-cut than in development, as there is a tremendous time factor – if there is no provision made for water and sanitation in a refugee camp, disease will soon break out. All that would lead to the idea that EWB would naturally get involved in humanitarian assistance or disaster relief. Moreover, our name further suggests that, like Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders, we will work in this area. EWB focuses on the challenges of long-term development. If the principle of disaster relief is speed – to rapidly react to emergencie
