The course took place on 13th March 2010 at Cambridge University Engineering Department.
In previous years it has been a two-day course, however in 2010 circumstances only allowed a single day.
Review by Christy Lowe (2nd-year Languages student, Cambridge).
As an arts student whose last academic encounter with a science subject was the GCSE physics exam four years ago, I was highly apprehensive about the prospect of a day in the Engineering Department. As it turned out though, the EWB-Cam Shelter Course was everything I’d hoped it would be. True, there were a few equations that went straight over my head, and diagrams that made me wonder if the PowerPoint was really the right way up, but overall the course was definitely worth it. Very informative talks were combined with fun hands-on challenges.
Dr Heather Cruickshank’s comprehensive introduction to Shelter in Emergencies was followed by a talk from Tom Corsellis, co-founder of Shelter Centre, about the work in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. An informative speech by Tom Whitworth and a practical exercise actually building Red Cross and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees - we had the lingo down by the end of the day!) tents outside really demonstrated the problems that might be encountered in providing effective emergency or transitional shelter to disaster-stricken communities (and also got us some attention from a police helicopter who seemed to think either that refugees were setting up camp on Fen Causeway or that we’d stolen humanitarian aid organisations’ property!) After lunch, Robert Malies got us thinking about the benefits and disadvantages of different options of shelter materials, and Victoria Batchelor talked us through her experience of the reconstruction process in Indonesia after the 2004 Tsunami. This talk was particularly interesting in explaining how the techniques of particular organisations vary- whereas some organisations opt for the humanitarian approach, UN Habitat (with whom Victoria worked) uses a developmental method in which a high level of input from the community itself determines the type of aid received. The day was rounded off with another practical exercise: this time we learnt the skills needed for concrete reinforcement from two Cambridge Engineering finalists who had done fieldwork in Peru and Bhutan for their final-year projects.
I never expected to come out of one training day with such a wide range of new skills and information, and I would really like to thank Seb Palmer and the whole EWB-Cam team for arranging the course. I highly recommend future events for anyone who’s interested in a career in international development as they are a fantastic way to gain a huge amount of both theoretical and practical knowledge about working in developing countries.
