EWB Strathclyde hosted the “Scottish International Development Conference” at the university from the 25th till the 27th of February. This post contains a run through of the event along with any additional information relevant to the talks and workshops themes. The various presentation given throughout the weekend are attached the bottom of the post.
Here Ye, Here Ye. EWB Durham will be hosting an event this weekend. Anyone wishing to go email us at contact@ewb-strathclyde.org
Details of the event are below Continue reading
EWB Strathclyde will be hosting the “Scottish International Development Conference” from the 25th until the 27th of February. The conference will include workshops and talks about International Development with a focus on sustainability. Each of the days will include:
The weekend will consist of:
Friday Evening: Keynote speech by Richard Carter, Head of Technical Support at WaterAid and Representative for Nicaragua at DFID. Followed by a networking fair with various engineering and development organisations inc. buffet reception.
Saturday and Sunday: Practical workshops and talks with a focus on sustainability. Lunches and dinner included. The activities on Sunday will finish in the early afternoon.
You can get tickets from the EWB-UK website
This is the video that we tried to play at Monday’s meeting, our attempts were thwarted by computer problems. In the video Jacqueline Novogratz presents a new way for giving aid, “Patient Capatalism”, which tries to negate some of the isssues raised concerning current policies of giving aid (i.e. just giving money away).
I think we got to about 10.05 minutes through the video before the computer stopped working.
David
This week’s recommendation is an article, which I recently read, published in the New Yorker magazine. Although the New Yorker has a lovely website; it is not focused on international development in any form (if you like a good film or book review, it’s a very useful website). Anyway, this article discusses some of the problems humanitarian aid can cause, especially in conflict zones, with NGO’s indirectly exacerbating wars. The article then tries to balance the good aid can achieve against the evil it sometimes spawns.
In stark contrast to Cici’s flowing prose, Ruaridh has opted to tell his story of Newcastle’s “Get Sheltered” event in the form of an epic narritive:
“The brave and intrepid travellers began their pilgrimage as 11 slumped and defeated figures in Central station, the 6.30 am meeting time having stretched the volume capabilities of most EWB member’s alarm clocks. In the end one alarm did fail in its traveller waking duties, but the Strathclyde EWB President with contractual nobleness stayed behind and followed on in the next train ensuring our full and impressive compliment of 12 Strathclyders.
Circle of Blue, is a website that covers topics related to water and is run by academics and journalists; they follow the philosophy that water is at the heart of most environmental matters.
As the website is run by journalists it is more like a newspapers website than any of the other website’s of the week; it’s kept up to date with in-depth stories and analysis, all written in an intelligible style. Although the charity is more concerned with environmental than development issues it remains a valuable resource.
A group of Strathclyde EWB members recently visited Newcastle Uni to attend their “Get Sheltered” event, here are some of Cici’s reminisces:
The EWB Regional Event – “Get Sheltered” took place in Newcastle on 20th of November. Twelve Strathclyde EWBers started their train journey at 6:50 am from Glasgow to Newcastle. Arriving at Newcastle University, we received a warm welcoming speech from the staff and technicians from Department of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. Then, we were split into four big groups tp take turns at participating in the four main workshops. I was in Group 4 with branch members from Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Durham, Glasgow and Newcastle.
Thursday the 25th of Novemeber at 7:30, on level 8 of the union. To book tickets; have a chat with william at the weekly meeting on Monday (cost £6), visit colville 5.11 between 1 and 2 on tuesday or thursday (cost £6, unless you can convince those stern civil engineers otherwise) or come along and get tickets on the door (cost £7).
The website Akvo has existed for some time, however it has just been given a major overhaul. There are many new features including a wiki, redesign for yer smart phones and real time tracking of projects.