About Us

Sign up for our emails with this link: https://forms.gle/JcvC8DXu6uhgVWqp7 Visit our website to read more about our current projects: www.pittewb.org Our chapter consists of three different project teams: local projects, fundraising, and Ecuador. Read a brief description of each team below. Local projects: Our local team works on engineering-related projects and outreach activities around the Pittsburgh area. Currently, we are partnering with Epsilon Eta to design and build a composting system for a community garden located near the Monongahela River. Recently, EWB has partnered with Plant2Plate to build a greenhouse for the community garden located on Oakland Ave near Bouquet Gardens. We designed and built the greenhouse out of pre-made panels, and a plaque commemorating our partnership with Plant2Plate can be seen on the greenhouse. In the past, the local team completed a water distribution system project in Cherry Ridge, Ohio. The team currently conducts local outreach around twice a month which includes volunteering at soup kitchens and street clean-ups through Adopt-a-Block. They have collaborated with other student organizations on campus such as the Conservation Club, Engineering for a Sustainable World, and Epsilon Eta, and are always looking for new collaborative opportunities. The team has also been involved in volunteer events at the Kamin Science Center and have teamed up with local nonprofits to do small projects throughout Pittsburgh. We look forward to a successful and productive year! Fundraising: Are you interested in learning about how nonprofits raise capital or working on keeping great projects happening? This experience is in high demand and not going away. On EWB's fundraising team, we work on making the international water and sanitation projects achievable. In the past, we have applied for grants, conducted corporate outreach, held fundraising events, and launched crowdfunding campaigns. This past fall we ran our Pumpkin Palooza and Serve for Change events, and secured our current corporate sponsor, Lighthouse Electric! Ecuador: The communities of Tambanal and Ayaloma first reached out to EWB Pitt in August of 2021 to request the help of our chapter in designing and constructing a water distribution system. Currently, community members carry large containers up steep slopes to gather water from 2 small streams multiple times a day. These sources are contaminated with bacteria and cause many preventable water-born illnesses. The student chapter teamed up with the Pittsburgh Professional Chapter (PPC) of EWB shortly after the partnership began to combine resources and further the success of the project. A group of both students and professionals traveled to the communities for the pre-assessment phase in December 2022 to gather GPS and health data. Since then, the team has used this data to design a complete water sanitation and distribution system including intake systems, chlorination, pressure break tanks, storage, and a mapped-out pipe network. In August 2024, we had our first implementation trip, and this August a team of 6 students and 5 professionals will return to the communities to continue the implementation of this system and collect more health data. The implementation phase of the project will take multiple years and trips to the community. Our goal is to provide clean water directly to each house in the community, which will impact approximately 150 people. Past Project - Bolivia: Together with the community of Carijana, Bolivia, we are working toward creating a solution to meet their sanitation needs. After traveling to the community in May of 2019, we discovered that the community's main water source is contaminated with E. coli due to lack of proper sanitation facilities. Our goal was to help each family build a latrine to prevent further contamination of their water. After collaborating with the community, we have decided, through an alternatives analysis, that a pour-flush latrine meets all of the design criteria. We successfully completed three rounds of remote implementation and two in-person implementations, which have resulted in the construction of 55 latrines. In addition to the successful reduction of E. coli and other contaminants to safe levels, we also created a safe environment for women and girls to practice safe menstrual health practices. You can read more here: https://ewb-usa.org/post/How-Sanitation-Design-is-Advancing-Women-s-Health-and-Safety-in-Bolivia