Marissa Jablonski

Engineering in international development is inherently social and requires community engagement. As international coordinator of a Guatemalan indigenous association, La Asociación de Comités Comunitarios Medio Ambiental de la Región Ixil (ACCMARI), I work quite a bit with globally recognized engineering organizations, like Engineers Without Borders (EWB). ACCMARI’s engineering projects always involve five primary stakeholders: village, municipal government, ACCMARI, outside engineers, and donors. Open discussions have begun regarding what each of these groups gives to a project, and what each of them receives. This discussion is raising awareness and trust across the sector divides, and has specifically increased confidence in small indigenous villages. Ixil people, who have been the recipients of many ‘development’ programs, are learning what outside engineers gain from their work in the Ixil Area. For instance, members of EWB teams gain field experience abroad, when they are unable to acquire this same experience domestically. Interestingly, it is notable that EWB engineers are not reacting to this increased communication as favorably. It is apparent that social aspects of engineering are not taught in engineering curriculum and in fact, technology is over-emphasized as offering complete solutions. Engineers often value fast execution of projects over community consensus and ownership. This makes communicating the need for community engagement at the initiation of a project with a new group a true challenge.
In this presentation, the speaker will lead the audience down a ‘choose your own adventure’ escapade by offering field experience prompts to the audience, introducing them to the five stakeholders involved in every ACCMARI project, and engaging with audience members to respond with different options forward. The intention of this work is to create a fun way to engage EWB engineers in community engagement methods and help them experience the dangers of ignoring community voice.