Advocate for Africa

University of Alberta Engineering Magazine

Recent graduate Rachel Maser (Mechanical Co-op ’05) has decided to spend her first year after university volunteering with Engineers Without Borders (EWB).

Maser works with community members to plan development projects

She is in Malawi—a small land-locked nation in southeastern Africa with a population of nearly 13 million people—applying her education to challenges that at first may not seem like the traditional domain of engineers. While with EWB, Maser is assigned to Action Aid International Malawi (AAIM), where she dedicates her time to a combination of engineering and development projects.

As a woman, not only is Maser a minority in a profession dominated by men, she is also an educated white woman in a country where the rules of patriarchy govern gender relations.

While she splits her time between engineering and development projects, she focuses much of her attention on improving the status of women who have traditionally been excluded from making decisions. “There is a huge disparity between men and women,” says Maser. “Many women still have to kneel to greet a man.” This attitude has proven particularly hard for Maser to overcome.

“Sometimes I get the same treatment, but I also try to treat them the same way. I see myself as a woman like other women, and so any treatment that emphasizes that I’m different makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Malawians have a deep respect for white westerners, and Maser recognizes that her race is a source of political empowerment as well as one of cultural isolation. “I make sure that my voice is heard and people understand where I’m coming from,” she says.

“I’m not afraid to challenge authority. Women in engineering, especially mechanical, are strong women because we have to be, if we’re not assertive, people walk all over us.”

Maser describes carrying water on her head as "one of the most painful experiences of my life."

[Melawian] women are often denied an education, they are discouraged from speaking up, and therefore they have few choices. Our workshops encourage them to use their own initiative, to challenge the status quo, to empower them to stand up for their rights, to ask for better health care and education.”

Not surprisingly, local men don’t always approve of Maser’s efforts.

“In many cases, if the men are not included in the efforts to empower local women, there have been instances where men subvert the intervention. For example, many interventions aim to economically empower women, but traditionally men control the money. So a woman may make money from the initiative, but the man will take it all from her. Or men have been known to sabotage the intervention because they see it is a threat to their power over women and dominance in the economic and social sphere.”

To address this gender conflict, Maser is helping to develop beekeeping as a source of financial empowerment for local women. She’s also looking for ways to involve local men.

“When designing this project we did not include men, and one of my roles will be to go back and find ways of including men so they do not feel marginalized and support the women. We’ll include men by having them be a part of the training (gender, business, and finance) so they gain skills and can learn about gender relations. We may also include men in the work groups, but we’ll have to be very clear that the men are in a supporting role only, not a leadership role,” she says.

To design engineering solutions for problems in the developing world, it’s important to use technology that functions as simply as possible. This reduces the likelihood that ongoing maintenance and training will be a burden to the local community once the engineers have left.

“Beekeeping technology is very simple, but it can be a profitable business as there is considerable demand for local honey,” Maser explains.

She will be assisting to introduce technology “that is supposed to be environmentally friendly and less labour intensive, which is especially important for women who are living with HIV/AIDS, and therefore are not in optimal health.”

Maser is training and motivating villagers to be independent and to advocate for services they need. “Sometimes I feel very isolated here,” she says.

“Though English is the official language of Malawi, a former British colony, most people speak the native language, Chichewa, so communication can be difficult. There are volunteers here from other organizations I can share experiences with. However, those groups have a different vision and mission than we do; our focus is human development and cultural integration.”

Her engineering project involves rehabilitating a gravity-fed water system built by AAIM in the late 90s. This ingenious network involves channeling fresh spring water from the mountainous areas into holding tanks. From there, pipes lead to taps in numerous small communities. It is a straight forward concept, but it takes time to repair it.

Maser leads a rights workshop for community women

Maser observes that, “People here have little sense of community ownership and let it fall into disrepair. We’re working with engineers from Blantyre (Malawi’s largest city) to survey the system so we can calculate the positioning of the pipes and delivery pressures along the route. We will then fix leaking tanks and broken pipes to make it functional and prevent contamination.

“The gravity-fed scheme is brilliant for its simplicity, and parts can be found locally. However, it does get run down after a few years and needs to be maintained. This is best done by the beneficiaries themselves—which is where the critical aspect of ownership comes in.”

While EWB plays a crucial role in undertaking engineering projects, it seeks to create solutions that can be managed by the local community, and to cultivate a legacy of indigenous empowerment.

Though the project requires engineering skills, Maser places even more importance on training locals to handle maintenance and financial management, and on developing a sense of ownership. After consulting with surrounding communities, the team has secured an agreement that each household will make a monthly contribution for maintenance (equal to 10-15 cents in Canada). The communities will also form water point committees to oversee maintenance and operations.

Maser has also helped train individuals and community groups in planning, financial, and organizational management, to help them launch businesses such as beekeeping, wine making, and dairy cattle. The success of each project depends on trust. Maser gains this trust in workshops and by visiting homes and villages, where she joins local people in their daily lives.

One such woman is Chrissie Hausi, director of MWASO, an AIDS support organization. Besides this demanding volunteer role, Hausi teaches school, and is raising six children, three of her own and three orphans. She has also taken one of the business courses Maser has helped to developed and has started to make fruit wine from bananas, tangerines, and papayas.

“She walks an hour and a half from her home village, Mphete, to Mwanza every day but never complains,” marvels Maser. “She is always smiling and laughing.”

“I’ve spent a few weekends with her and her family, carrying water, picking pigeon peas, and making nsima (a thick corn-based staple with the consistency of mashed potatoes). Carrying water was one of the most painful experiences of my life. It gave me tremendous respect for the men and women here who carry just about everything on their heads.”

Maser advocates for Africa, both in Malawi and at home. She has written articles for the Edmonton Journal, the EWB newsletter, and the CIDA website. On July 29, 2006, the Journal published her story about a visit to a refugee camp on World Refugee Day, where she was moved by the stories told by women brutally violated in war-torn countries.

Other themes she’s exploring are a day in the life of a villager, the contrast between engineering in Alberta and Malawi, and the story of a local AIDS support organization. Though a Canadian by birth who still calls Edmonton home, Maser had first-hand experience in Africa during her childhood. Her family lived in Zimbabwe, where her journalist father was assigned the sub-Saharan beat. “Living there gave us all a special affection for Africa. Family dinner discussions about African politics and economics influenced me.” Maser is passionate in both her defence and love of Africa. “In my articles, I don’t focus only on the problems. I try to show the multi-dimensionality and dynamism of Africa. There is so much more to this continent than war and hungry children.”