UOIT students and alumni take part in Run to End Poverty

Nearly two dozen members of the UOIT chapter initiative of Engineers Without Borders (EWB@UOIT) hit the streets during this fall’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon to raise funds for EWB@UOIT’s Run to End Poverty (R2EP).

The efforts of the UOIT students and alumni brought in more than $3,000, putting EWB@UOIT more than halfway to its goal of sending a UOIT student overseas to participate in EWB’s Infrastructure in Ghana program.

EWB is a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring systemic change to Africa through its innovative African development programs, champion fair trade initiatives and support global engineering. EWB has 45,000 members worldwide and is comprised of 3,000 volunteers in Canada, with another 300 volunteers serving overseas. The growing EWB group at UOIT has been around for seven years.

“R2EP was our best fundraising event so far and it comes as we look to finally launch a full EWB chapter at UOIT,” said UOIT Engineering student Mitchell Hines, outreach co-ordinator, EWB@UOIT. “Our core group contributes to campus culture and represents UOIT through developmental workshops at Durham Region high schools.”

Through its participation at national conferences and events, the group also represents UOIT at other engineering universities and engineering companies.

“We’re not just engineers,” explains Hines. “In fact, engineers make up only 40 per cent of all EWB members across Canada. We are hoping to expand our group to include representation from a wide range of other student groups at UOIT, and projects like R2EP are another important step in that direction.”

Other fundraising and awareness events for EWB@UOIT include fair trade coffee days, midnight skates and learning workshops. See the EWB@UOIT website for more details.

More than 24,000 runners from 50 countries took part in the various races at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, raising almost $4 million for 167 charities.