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EWB’s Purpose

DRAFT – July 4, 2011Note: This is meant to describe the essence of our work with Engineers Without Borders – what unifies and differentiates us. It intentionally avoids a single statement in order to incorporate the imperative, our understanding of the problem, and totality of our approach. It will also give us direction and guide the next stages of our creation of strategy, goals, objectives (medium and short-term), throughout the organization.

Context: This is a draft that is nearing the “finish line”. The ideas here have evolved through many conversations over the past 16-months, including through Winter/Summer 2010 with mostly staff, APS and key leaders, Fall 2010 with broader groups including the Advisory Council of Members, the Vision Week and National Conference conversations, and conversations in April-June 2011 with National Office staff, key leaders, Presidents, some APLT and APS. While a small number of people have compiled this summarized language, the concepts have been developed and are owned by many EWBers.

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VALUES and BELIEFS

VISION

CHANGE

ACTIONS

PEOPLE VOICE

How the parts of the Purpose fit together (DRAFT)

10+yrs

When to revisit?

7-10yrs

4-5yrs

2-5yrs

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VALUES and BELIEFS

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VISION

Our VisionExtreme Poverty is a distant memory.

Universal dignity and opportunity are a reality.

Every voice is heard and every person can realize their full potential.

This is a world we would be proud to leave to our grandchildren.

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Our PeopleWe are change leaders – in Canada and Africa, students and professionals, engineers and others – who invest in each other to bring passion, authenticity and a systems-thinking approach. We embrace the tension of being both an organization and movement. As an organization, we develop and deploy resources for concrete action. As a movement, we unite as EWBers, forever providing the inspiration and network to affect positive change, even outside of our organizational focus.

PEOPLE

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Our VoiceWe speak truth to power. We use the power of our voice to speak out against systemic failures and injustices. We bring to the table and amplify voices who are not normally heard.

Our own voice is made stronger because of our financial and political independence. We are a free actor in the development system.

VOICE

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Our ChangeThe existence of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa represents a great injustice and persists despite decades of foreign aid. This problem is systemic. We do whatever it takes to incubate and scale disruptive ideas that increase dignity and opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our approach is systemic.

CHANGE

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Our Actions: We invest, we connect, we develop, we leadWe invest in African ideas, organizations and entrepreneurs. We find and scale service and operational innovations that support Our Change. We work vertically, understanding and leveraging field realities to influence policy and donor decisions.

We connect Canadians to Africa by fostering deeper understanding and influencing behaviours of citizens as consumers, voters, donors and volunteers. We invest in Canadian institutions and corporations to further this connection.

We develop global engineers who can address the complex challenges of the 21st century. We challenge engineers to go beyond their technical training, and see their broader role in society. We invest in educational and professional institutions so that engineers embrace and have the skills to relate to and address global issues.

We lead by influencing Canadian government development policies to be the best in the world. We join forces with powerful influencers and hold them accountable. We lead by example through combining being a searching organization, admitting and learning from failure, and driving change at scale.

ACTIONS

Note: These need the most work/refining.

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Brief note on tone

• Right now the tone of this is pretty serious (metaphor: wears a collared shirt and nice pants/skirt)

• We might want to try certain parts with a lighter tone, something more reflective of the culture you would experience at a retreat, conference, etc (metaphor: shorts and a t-shirt)