Day 1

Parallel Session: Stream 1 - Indigenous Australia & Reconciliation

Engage Forum: Indigenous Pathways to Engineering Education

Panelists:

Dr David Cruikshanks-Boyd (PB/EA SA)
Jerome Cubillo (AIME)
Lee Joachim - (Indigenous Facilitator Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation)
Tom Day (CEO - Gunditjmirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation)
Ben Lange (Indigenous Australian Engineering Summer School Alumni and AusGrid)

The Engage Forum is a recurring dialogue amongst key representatives across the engineering sector about creating opportunities for greater engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. This Engage Forum is focused on Education; how can the Engineering Sector engage and support Aboriginal students in choosing pathways into Engineering?

Reconciliation Action Plans: Reflecting on the Journey

Panelists:

Bill Lawson (SKM)
Sharona Torrins (Reconciliation Australia)
Emma Thomas (Queensland Dept TMR)
Jeremy Smith (ANU/EWB)
Bronte Strout (EA)
Cheryl Buchanan (Chairperson - Kooma Traditional Owners Association)

Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia has moved through several key stages in the past decades; from the 1991 Report on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the creation of Reconciliation Australia in 2000 and the formal apology to the stolen generations in February 2008. Now the second phase; reconciliation on a personal and organisational level is being implemented through the mechanism of Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs). This session will include a panel of people located at different points of the journey, some who have advised on participated in the creation of RAPs, those several years into the process; and will provide an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned and the successes gained to date.

Parallel Session: Stream 2 - Human Centred Design

Panel: People centred design. How the human factor is incorporated into Community Development?

Panel of EWB Community Partners

Panelists:

Kea Pheng (Rainwater Cambodia)
Alex Santos (PLAN)
Dinesh (NAMUNA)
Umesh Pandey (NEWAH)
Ian Cunningham (EWB)

Some of Engineers Without Borders' Community Partners from PLAN Timor Leste, Rainwater Cambodia, Santulan (India) and NEWAH (Nepal) join us in a panel discussion of their work and how they work with local people on community development programs.

Kea Pheng is the executive director of RWC and is committed to helping RainWater Cambodia work towards its Vision and Mission of helping the people of rural Cambodia have access to water and sanitation. Kea has a strong background in integrated rural development including agricultural development, community mobilization and water and sanitation. He holds a bachelor degree of animal production and health and an associate degree of civil engineering. Kea has almost 10 years of experience relating to rural development specializing in ecological agricultural research and development and improving the livelihoods of small farmers and poor households through community based development and water and sanitation projects.

Alex Santos is the WASH Program Manager for Plan Timor Leste. Plan Timor-Leste and their partners have provided clean water and sanitation to 8,500 people living in poor rural communities over the past two years. This has drastically improved women and children’s lives as the burden of daily water collection has been reduced from hours to minutes and their levels of health have improved significantly. In order to ensure these gains are sustained in the future, Alex is committed to Plan's approach of partnering with the communities to make sure they lead the process and take full ownership of infrastructure.

Dinesh Poudyal is the director of NAMUNA Nepal, Namuna have a number of programs targeting child and neonatal health from provision of maternal health care facilities, HIV education to design of a cycle ambulance.

Workshop: Human Centered Design

Lucinda Hartley, CEO, CoDesign Studio

Rachael holds first class honours in Civil and Construction Engineering and was the 2001 recipient of Engineers Australia’s Digby Leach Award. She spent ten years leading a diverse range of projects in the engineering, public and third sectors in Australia and England before obtaining a circus qualification in Sheffield, England, and a University Diploma of Yogic Education from the University of Lille, France.

Seeing teams in every industry do things the way they’d always done them without making the right inquiry fuelled Rachael’s interest in enabling businesses to deliver projects more effortlessly. She also wanted workplaces that are more fulfilling for employees and that generate a more positive impact for the world. Many organisations don’t understand how to do one of these well, but Rachael found that doing all three has a generative effect.

Rachael’s work now brings together her interest in physical play and her passion for asking questions with her belief in creating better businesses through empathy, engagement and awareness. She recently returned to Perth, inspired by the changes the city is experiencing and passionate about enabling decisions that will ensure we invest the gains from our current prosperity in a positive future. Rachael is involved with Social Innovation in Western Australia, participating in and facilitating discussions about the conditions for an Australia that welcomes social innovation. In 2009 she spoke at Westminster about the role of social enterprise in public service delivery.

What problem are we really solving?

Rachael West, Strategic Creativity

Rehabilitation Engineering Session

No information was available at time of publication

Parallel Session: Stream 3 - Engineering Education

Humanitarian Engineering and Education

Jennifer DeBoer

No information was available at time of publication

EWB University Research Showcase

EWB works in close partnership with Universities to improve the quality of education in Australia whilst directly contributing to the work of its community development partners. EWB is a link between these sectors ensuring students are engaging with community development work while studying in Australia.

This session presents three high quality undergraduate research programs recently facilitated through the EWB university program.

Biogas Capture and Storage on Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia
Henry Craig & Alexander Thompson (The University of Melbourne)
Appropriate stove design, Nepal
Matthew Higgins, Gregory Macfarlane, Matthew Read, Tom West, Josh Wilkey, Cris Birzer and Paul Medwell (The University of Adelaide)
Developing a manual to measure the sustainability of RainWater Cambodia projects
Klyti Scott (RMIT, Environmental Engineering)

Development Engineering Workshop: Tipping the Balance on a National Scale – Education in Timor and WASH in Nepal

Presenters:

Mr Umesh Pandey (NEWAH)
Ms. Kathryn Green (NEWAH/EWB)
Mrs. Aderita Takeleb (DIT)
Mr. Bradley Abbot (EWB/DIT)

Dili Institute of Technology (DIT) is a private non-profit, accredited tertiary education institute which was founded in 2002 in Dili, Timor Leste. DIT’s mission is to offer education, vocational training, research and service to upskill a range of Timorese and enable them to contribute to Timor Leste socio-economic development once they complete their studies with DIT.

Aderita Takeleb has taught Civil Engineering at the Dili Institute of Technology since opening in 2002. Aderita is originally from Malang, Indonesia and came to Dili with her Timorese partner shortly after independence. Currently, Aderita serves as the Director of the School of Engineering & Science and lectures in the areas of Water Supply and Environmental Engineering. Aderita is a committed to the development of high education institutions in Timor Leste and improving the supply of locally, quality educated Timorese graduates to support the development of Timor Leste.

Brad Abbott is an Engineers Without Borders Australia volunteer serving as a Civil Engineering Curriculum Adviser with the Dili Institute of Technology. Brad is a Mechanical Engineer and has over 12 years experience working in the area of Building Energy Retrofit Services, specializing in Energy Performance Contracting in the United States, Japan and Australia. Brad has previously worked two year as a development volunteer through the AUSAID funded VIDA program in the Aceh and Bali regions of Indonesia. Brad is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPENG) in Australia and a Licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the US State of Texas.

Join Aderita and Brad as they discuss the work of DIT, the challenges of working in the East Timorese context, and their vision for the future.

Umesh Pandey joined as WaterAid's project coordinator in Nepal in 1989 and founded Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH) a Nepali NGO in 1992 and has been the Director since then. He has Maters Degree in Economics with various training in the field of management,development and water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) related approaches. He heads a team of 80 regular staff working across the country delivering vital WASH services. He has recently been elected as the steering committee member of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Councils (WSSCC) from South Asia. NEWAH is the largest Nepali NGO that specialises in WASH and has so far contributed nearly over 4% of the total Nepali population with WASH services. WASH Service delivery in rural communities, capacity building for WASH and improving governance in WASH are the main activities that NEWAH undertakes. Currently, it has partnerships with WaterAid, AusAID, EWB, Charity Water, SIMAVI, Rotary club of Elgin, PLAN and AYAD for funding and technical support.

Panel: Education from an Overseas Community Partner Perspective

EWB Community Partners from India, Sri Lanka and East Timor

Presenters:

Mr. Joss Brooks (Pitchandikulam Forest)
Mr. Chamila Kariyawasam (SLSPO)
Mrs.Aderita Takeleb (DIT)
Mr Brad Abbot (EWB/DIT)
Mrs. Poli Rege (Santulan)

Joss Brooks founded the Pitchandikulum Bio Resource Centre in Auroville in Tamil Nadu India. Auroville is a unique, experimental township in Tamil Nadu, and since the 1970s Joss and Pitchandikulam have been dedicated to environmental restoration, education and livelihood projects in 25 villages in the surrounding bioregion. Joss’ work began with restoring the green cover over the Auroville Green Belt, and he was recently awarded the T.N. Khoshoo Memorial Award for his work on restoration projects transforming a garbage dump into a thriving indigenous vegetation area in the city of Chennai. Joss and Pitchandikulam Forest have worked with EWB on village mapping, decentralised water treatment systems, village outreach programs and most recently partnered around the EWB Challenge.

After completing her Masters in Social Work Poli Rege bagan her career working with women in Uttar Pradesh. In 1997 she came to Pune to start the NGO Santulan along with Bastu. She began Santulan's Women's Movement among stone quarry, rural and slum women of lower socio-economic strata in 1999. This part of Santulan has grown to coordinate over 3000 women into 200 Self Help Groups, an Independent Women's Credit Cooperative Society, a Women's Free Legal Aid Cell, a Women's Industrial Society and ongoing leadership and empowerment training.

Sri Lanka needs an estimated 115 prosthetist-orthotists to serve the needs of the disabled population. Sri Lankan teacher Mr. Chamila Kariyawasam has been helping bridge this gap with the Sri Lanka School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (SLSPO), working with trainees to prepare them for the task of fitting amputees with new limbs. Chamila, who is a graduate in bioscience, has been developing the Maths, Mechanics and Material Science courses for first-year students at the school. SLSPO

"Being myself a congenitally disabled individual, I developed an interest to provide services to people with disability in my own country through SLSPO who produce artificial limbs and orthopaedic braces to disable people. In SLSPO, local students are taught how to prescribe, manufacture and fit those devices to International standards." Chamila loves his working place since SLSPO servicing to disabled people with no-money and his support also impotence to set up local P&Os to keep on this project.

Day 2

Parallel Sessions: Stream One - Corporate Social Responsibility & Engagement

CSR: Not just a sweetener

Dr. Sunny Oliver-Bennets, Corporate Partner Manager, EWB-A

Dr Sunny Oliver-Bennetts completed her PhD in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Branding in 2009. She has presented her findings at numerous internationally acclaimed conferences and has tutored business students in consumer psychology and behaviour, management communications and cultural tourism at La Trobe University, Victoria. Her background is in cross sector partnership management between the not-for-profit, education, community and private sectors. This has involved Sunny working for one of Australia's leading social enterprises that improves the lives of homeless and disadvantaged Australians.

Currently, she is the Corporate Partnership Manager at Engineers Without Borders Australia managing eleven corporate partnerships that focus on humanitarian engineering. Sunny is an Accredited Partnership broker through the PBAS Scheme. She is also a Co-founder and Director of not-for-profit organisation Desert2Surf that empowers indigenous youth through outdoor activities with a focus on surfing. Her research interests include: pro bono engineering, CSR, branding, cross-sector partnerships, and organisational change. She also loves to surf and snowboard!

Brokering Partnerships for Sustainable Development

Ian Dixon, Dixon Partnering Solutions

Ian Dixon is the Founder and Principal of DIXON Partnering Solutions (DPS), an organisation specializing in creating, developing and sustaining effective cross sector partnerships. Ian is an internationally accredited partnership broker through a scheme initiated by the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) in collaboration with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and now managed by IBLF. Ian is also a member of the International Advisory Group for The Partnership Brokering Project and an Associate of The Partnering Initiative, both programs within IBLF. Some of Ian's recent assignments include supporting Partnership Broker organisations appointed as part of the Australian Governments National Partnership on Youth Attainment and Transitions and assisting Primary Healthcare Partnership Councils across Queensland to develop their partnering skills and effectiveness. Ian has also developed a number of short course training programs designed to assist partners to build their partnering capacity and these programs have been delivered throughout Australia. One of Ian's most challenging roles during the last 10 years has been as the Independent Chair of the South Australian Native Title Resolution initiative from January 2000 until February 2009. Ian has over 20 years' experience in senior executive roles in both the public and private sectors and prior to founding DPS in 1999, he held a number of chief executive positions within the South Australian State Government in areas such as Industry & Trade, Mines & Energy and Local Government as well as Executive Director of the Local Government Boundary Reform Board.

Immediate Action

Mark McNee, Member Engagement & Local Partnerships Coordinator EWB Australia

Mark's EWB journey began at the University of Queensland when he became the Vice President in 2006. Since then he has been involved with running chapters, supporting local projects and the Kooma partnership. In July 2011 he made the big move down to Melbourne where he is currently working as the Member Engagement Coordinator.

Summed up in his own words; 'EWBers never cease to amaze me. I'm SO stoked to kick into the next phase of my life with EWB!'

Mark has worked as an engineer in design and construction. He has often been overheard saying how much he loves building stuff that has a positive impact on communities and the environment. His personal source of renewable energy is his family and friends and he disappears to his salty playground for a surf as often as possible."

The India Context Part 1: Working with the rural poor

Parallel Sessions: Stream Two - Risk Engineering

The Australian Defence Force Reserve Supporting Humanitarian Engineering Outcomes

Brigadier Peter Jeffery, Australian Army & Mr Dechlen Ellis, Sinclair Knight Merz

This session examines the vital role that the Australian Defence Force Reserves provide in humanitarian engineering. In particular it explores the ADF response to domestic disasters, and the deployment of highly skilled individuals supporting operations in Afghanistan.

Brigadier Peter Jeffery is currently the Commander of 11 Brigade. 11 Brigade contributed force elements to support the ADF Task forces responsible for the 2011 Queensland Flood Assistance and Cyclone Yasi Assistance. In June 2011 he was inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the ADF.

Mr Dechlan Ellis SKM. Mr Ellis is SKM’s Manager for Buildings and Infrastructure South East Australia. He has previously served in the Australian Defence Force and deployed as a reservist engineer to Afghanistan in 2009.

Engineers Delivering Humanitarian Outcomes in Acute Emergencies

Neil Greet, Engineers Australia

This session summarises the series of workshops conducted across Australia examining engineers delivering humanitarian outcomes in acute emergencies. In particular the presentation reinforces the requirement for interconnected community which responds to humanitarian needs in disasters and conflict.

Neil was the convenor of the Workshops series examining engineers delivering humanitarian outcomes. He is a retired ADF officer with experience operationally in East Timor and Iraq, and supported the ADF response to the Black Saturday fires. He now runs a small consultancy, Collaborative Outcomes, providing advice and support to Government Non-Government Organisations and industry on disaster management and civil-military interaction.

What role is there for Industry in disaster response; lessons from the United States

Mr Joe Chapman, AECOM

This session examines lessons from previous disasters, schemes and programs. In particular this session examines Industry Support to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) throughout the disaster management cycle (prevention – preparation – response – recovery), and Preparations for events (standing contracts, registers of standby personnel, FEMA training/accreditation for AECOM staff).

Engineering Supporting Wider Humanitarian Outcomes

Dr. Elizabeth Barber, UNSW & NOETIC Solutions

This session consists of two separate presentations followed by a short panel session. One presentation will look at the importance of engineering efforts supporting the humanitarian supply chain. The second presentation will examine a new way of viewing governance by building capacity in Engineering in Developing Countries.

Elizabeth is an academic at the UNSW Canberra campus researching Supply Chain Management and Logistics. Her experience and knowledge has led to her being called as expert witnesses in a variety of transportation (ports and railways as well as rail/road competition) and bulk freight movements (including iron ore and coal exports). Her research interests include the theoretical aspects of power and influence in supply chains, military logistics, humanitarian logistics, inventory analysis and performance metrics used in supply chains. Elizabeth has lectured both undergraduate and post graduate logistics and supply chain management for the past number of years. The long term research interests in all aspects of supply chains have continued to concentrate on the product rather than people flows. The research has narrowed in the past few years to domination and influence along total supply chains. In her address Elizabeth will combine this depth of knowledge with the impacts that engineers make on the humanitarian supply chain flows.

Day 3

Parallel Sessions: Stream One - Progressing Humanitarian Engineering

A Snapshot of Pro Bono Engineering

Dr Sunny Oliver-Bennetts and Sarah Purcell

Dr Sunny Oliver-Bennetts and Sarah Purcell will present findings from an exploratory research project on pro-bono engineering. The report was commissioned by Engineers Australia in the

Year of Humanitarian Engineering to provide an insight into pro bono engineering activities across Australia. The research involved interviewing senior engineering managers, CSR managers, project managers and volunteers to provide rich perspectives on pro-bono partnerships.

The report explores the success and challenges of pro bono engineering case studies. A set of recommendations are presented to the industry with the hope that pro-bono partnerships will become a more prevalent form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Sarah has been entangled in EWB for five years through the University of Melbourne Chapter as well as taking a role as a Director of the organisation. She completed her double degree of Chemical Engineering and Law in 2010, during her degree she pursued a passion of pro bono engineering through a comparative study of the engineering and legal industries' respective pro bono activities. After some time sampling grilled octopus in Greece, and sipping Sangria in Spain, Sarah has spent the second half of this year researching pro bono engineering activities.

Pro Bono Stories from the Field

Dr Sunny Oliver-Bennetts and Sarah Purcell

This session is an opportunity to hear both community and company perspectives on pro bono engineering partnerships. These representatives will share their stories of how the pro bono partnerships were initiated, how they were managed and the outcomes for both the community, company and other individuals involved. There will also be a panel discussion where you can ask the panel representatives about their tips for success and lessons learnt.

College of Biomedical Engineering: Outcomes from the Technical Workshop Series

No information was available at time of publication

Defence and Humanitarian Engineering

Clare O’Neil, Civil Engineer, Australian Defence Forces (Army)

Clare O’Neill is a chartered civil engineer in the Australian Army. Clare is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Military College of Duntroon. In 2005, Clare was posted to 17th Construction Squadron as the Construction Troop Commander. During this posting she was involved with the ATSIC Army Community Assistance Project at Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. In 2006 Clare was deployed to Afghanistan and completed reconstruction work in the areas of health, education and civil infrastructure. She returned to Afghanistan in 2008 continuing reconstruction work and the rebuild of vital bridges destroyed by the Taliban along Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar. In 2009, Clare was deployed on Operation Padang Assist for the earthquake recovery assistance in Indonesia. She is currently on secondment from the Army as the Aide-de-Camp to the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce AC.

Parallel Sessions: Stream Two - Current Partnerships

Hand outs or hand ups? Community engagement in the WASH sector

Alex Santos, WASH Manager Plan Timor Leste and Kea Pheng, Director Rainwater Cambodia

Kea Pheng and James Oakley from Rainwater Cambodia will talk about their experiences in stimulating the local private sector to provide safe drinking water for rural communities in Cambodia.

Aleixo Santos and Doug Ruuska from Plan Timor Leste will talk about their experiences in facilitating community empowerment for WASH programming in Timor Leste.

RainWater Cambodia (RWC) is a non profit and non political organisation, and was established in 2004 to formalize and promote rainwater harvesting in order to contribute to the necessary improvement of access to safe water sources and sanitation in rural areas in Cambodia.

James Oakley is a current EWB field volunteer working with RainWater Cambodia as a WASH advisor. He has a Chemical engineering degree and after a few years travelling and working round the world he is happy to have found his dream job/placement with EWB in the humanitarian engineering field. He hails from the sunny shores of NZ and enjoys all things outdoors.

Plan Timor-Leste and their partners have provided clean water and sanitation to 8,500 people living in poor rural communities over the past two years. This has drastically improved women and children’s lives as the burden of daily water collection has been reduced from hours to minutes and their levels of health have improved significantly. In order to ensure these gains are sustained in the future, Plan's approach is to partner with the communities to make sure they lead the process and take full ownership of infrastructure.

Alex was born in the Timor Leste district of Bobonaro and started work with PLAN in 2006 to directly assist/manage the supply of WASH services to IDPs living within camps. At this time Alex and his family also became IDPs and lived in one of the Camps in Dili. Along with many of the IDPs, Alex was eventually able to return to his home in 2008. With the Camps now closed, Alex’s work moved to the rural district of Aileu, where he took over as Project Coordinator. As project coordinator, he worked closely with the district Govt departments and local partners (NGOs). By the end of 2010 Alex had been promoted to WASH manager responsible for overseeing the entire PLAN WASH program.

Before working with Plan, Alex had only a basic understanding of the main WASH principles (hydraulics), which he learned from his first degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1997. Through his work with Plan and the WASH projects he helped to implement, Alex has not only become skilled at the engineering design but he has also become adept at working with the communities of TL. He has learnt how to mobilize communities and to work with them to resolve issues and constraints. He is well aware however, that all communities are different and what works with one does not necessarily work with others. Alex is committed to Plan and to WASH issues in TL. Although he has learnt much, he is motivated to continue learning so that he can improve both his own knowledge and in turn the quality of the programs he manages.

In 2010/11, Doug Ruuska spent 12 months living in the district of Aileu, Timor Leste where he worked to support the PLAN WASH program and to build capacity of the local partner organisations around quality water and sanitation works for rural communities. Through this experienece Doug further entrenched his own ideas surrounding the value of effective engagement to deliver long term sustainable solutions through local empowerment. Doug currently works as a civil engineer on water and wasterwater projects with an engineering consultancy firm in Melbourne.

Improving Health through Appropriate Technology: The story of stoves for maternal health and the prosthetic leg

Mr Chamila Kariyawasam, Sri Lankan School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (SLSPO), Mr Dinesh Poudyal, NAMUNA and Melanie Bok, EWB-A

Sri Lanka needs an estimated 115 prosthetist-orthotists to serve the needs of the disabled population. Sri Lankan teacher Chamila Kariyawasam has been helping bridge this gap with the Sri Lanka School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (SLSPO), working with trainees to prepare them for the task of fitting amputees with new limbs. Chamila, who is a graduate in bioscience, has been developing the Maths, Mechanics and Material Science courses for first-year students at the school. SLSPO

Dinesh Poudyal is the Team Leader of NAMUNA Integrated Development Council (NAMUNA) who works with marginalised and impoverished communities in north-south areas of rural Nepal. They work in areas such as Maternal and Child Health, Infectious Disease Control, HIV Prevention, Drug Abuse prevention and Peace Building Initiatives. The target group includes are Women, Children, Youth, Migrating population and Conflict affected families. NAMUNA has collaborated with EWB on delivering improved cook stoves and fuel options for rural women as part of a Maternal health program believing the facts that the low cost, people friendly and sustainable technological innovations are crucial for Health promotion of rural communities.

The India Context Part 2: Working with the rural poor

Mr Bastu Rege, Mrs Poli Rege and Mrs Kristen Wood, Santulan

Santulan are a small but truly remarkable organisation. They work with the stone quarry worker communities of India, who have a story to tell but have challenges being recognised as citizens. The quarry workers live and school on the quarry sites, in a hot, dusty and occupationally dangerous environment. Added to this communities face challenges in accessing services we take for granted including health care, housing, education, food and water. Santulan and assisting them with access to these basic human rights.

EWB volunteers have been working with Santulan to address the significant health and safety issues present for the stone quarry communities with a particular focus on water, sanitaiton and hygiene and occupational health and safety.

After completing his Masters in Social Work in 1995 at the University of Mangalore, Karnataka, Bastu Rege began his carrer in Pune working with an NGO as a project officer. As he was returning home from work he witnessed an accident where a child was hit by a truck. He followed the truck back to the quarry where he saw the horrifying conditions that the migrant stone quarry workers lived in. After this incident Bastu, along with his wife Poli, initiated an NGO named Santulan to work towards the rights and empowerment of socio-economically marginalised communities. Their overall goal is to fight poverty and marginalisation through a development and rights-based approach by means of Education, Organization and Empowerment.

Kristen Wood was an EWB volunteer with Santulan in 2010/11 working on Community Well-being projects ranging from OHS issues on the quarry sites to Sanitation education programs in the schools. Kristen worked previously with the Victorian government but her pathway to Humanitarian Engineering began with a Masters of Engineering in Sustainable Energy and her time with Santulan. She has just returned from Mexico where she was researching biogas.

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept: Local Partnerships

Holly Reid, CEO Menzies Incorporated & Sally Groom Coordinator of Therapy; Sages Cottage Farm

Capacity development executed in developing economies is very appealing due to the "bang for your buck" associated with economies of scale and the diversity of culture as a draw card for the placed worker or volunteer. These efforts are exceptional and are often celebrated. Lets take the time to focus closer to home and celebrate organisations that refuse to tune out to things in their own community that are not right. Organisations that engage with injustice and inequality that appears just beyond our doorstep. Menzies incorporated is such an organisation.

Holly has an obvious focus and passion, as well as formal qualifications; in the field of child services. Holly has just seen through the 5th year as CEO of Menzies Inc. which is Frankston's oldest charity. Menzies runs 4 homes for residential care for children from the department of children services as well as day programme for non residents. The animals at the farm make for a great environment for the children and the greater community that is involved with Menzies.

Sally's formal training is in both Psychology and Family Therapy and has combined this with a keen eye for motivated organisations with good values to work with Menzies Inc. These skills and passion ha base at Sages Cottage Farm for the last 12 months. Sally has a longer history than her involvement with Menzies on the Mornington Peninsula where Sages Cottage Farm is based. Sally background and experience within the social work field specifically with vulnerable families and children who have experienced abuse and trauma. As the Coordinator of Therapy, Sally is the clinician for the Animal Assisted Therapy Program. "

Parallel Sessions: Stream Three - Engineers Assisting in Disaster

RedR Australia Humanitarian Assistance Deployments

Alan McLean, CEO, RedR

Alan McLean has been CEO of RedR Australia since February 2008. His experience includes 14 years with Australian Red Cross, particularly its response to international disasters.

He has been active in emergency relief in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kenya, Mozambique, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, and most of the small islands of the south-west Pacific.
Alan has also headed community-based organisations in health, welfare, crime prevention and sport.

RedR Humanitarian Engineering in the Field

Dinesh Jayasuriya, RedR Australia returned field engineer

Dinesh is an Electrical and Computer System Engineer and a philosophy major. Since graduating eleven years ago, he has spent most of career working in Sustainable Engineering and Sustainability Software. After a close call with the 2004 boxing day tsunami in Sri Lanka, Dinesh wanted to use his technical skills help those affected by the tsunami but did not know how. On his return to Australia he found RedR Australia and applied for the RedR Australia register.

After undergoing humanitarian responder training in both Australia and Sweden, Dinesh finally deployed through RedR in early 2010 for a mission with UNICEF in Jerusalem as a data management specialist. In October last year he accepted another RedR mission, this time with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Pakistan as an Information Management Officer. After successfully completing his mission and returning from Pakistan, Dinesh also returned to his passion of sustainable engineering and founded Sustainometrics Consulting and is currently studying Environmental Law.

Australian Civilian Corps, supporting Stabilisation and Recovery

Cheryl Johnson, Assistant Director General for AusAID

Cheryl Johnson is a strategic leader within the Australian Public Service with private sector experience and an extensive background in policy development and program delivery. Her experience stretches across a broad range of national security environments, supply chain and logistics security, infrastructure and public health.

Cheryl’s current role is to deliver the Australian Civilian Core program announced by the government in November 2009. The Australian Civilian Corps deploys civilian specialists to countries experience or emerging from natural disasters or conflicts. The Corps supports stabilisation, recovery and development planning

Cheryl has significant national security experience. For five years Cheryl was responsible for delivering policy advice to Government and delivery of programs associated identity security, regional aviation security, supply chain security and transport security screening practices and technology application. In June 2009, Cheryl was seconded to PM&C to assist in the creation, implementation and evaluation of Prime Minister Rudd’s first National Security Executive Development Pilot Program targeting sixteen of Australia’s highest performing SES Band 1 Executives.

Prior to her commencing with AusAid in June 2010, Cheryl was responsible for managing the financial governance of the government’s $36billion Infrastructure Investment Program and for delivering the infrastructure road program in QLD, SA, NT and WA.