The Cameroon Water and Health Project Team is traveling once again to visit our friends in Mbokop, Cameroon, and further our efforts to bring the community a sustainable, healthy, and reliable source of clean water. This will be the sixth trip to the community by the project team. The team will be engaging with the community, providing educational lessons on caring for the water system, and furthering construction of the water system currently being installed. As our team gears up and takes off, we wanted to introduce our travelers making this trip possible by volunteering their time, minds, and muscles.
Angeline Cione, Traveling Mentor and Technical Lead
Angeline has been involved with EWB-DC for 7 years now, primarily involved with the Santa Clara, El Salvador project. In college, she studied chemical engineering and now works in environmental engineering, energy conservation, and sustainability program management. She brings with her years of engineering expertise, as well as experience from a previous EWB trip to Cameroon, which allows her to provide superior technical leadership. Angeline grew up loving the outdoors and continues to love hiking, biking, and generally being outside. She sees EWB as the perfect intersection of her interests: travel, being outdoors, meeting new people, and using things she’s learned along the way to help make people’s lives a little better. Angeline was recently accepted into The Peace Corps, and will be heading to Peru for her assignment one month after she returns from Cameroon. We wish her a safe voyage on both this trip and her future journey to Peru!
Robert “Rob” Horner, Trip Lead and Health and Safety Officer
Robert has worked as an energy policy analyst for the past six years, and is currently an ORISE Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis. Outside of work and EWB, he also leads wilderness trips for students at North Carolina State University, his alma mater. Rob has made previous trips with the project team, and is looking forward to seeing the kind, deserving, and warm people of Mbokop again. “Their excitement when our team arrives is infectious and sets the tone for the entire trip.”
As the Trip Lead and Health and Safety Officer, he is always on the ready. When looking forward to the trip, he says, ”of course we will have challenges, both expected and unexpected, but I am confident that our team of EWB volunteers and in-country partners will be able to handle whatever comes. Our team is experienced and well-prepared.”
Fun Fact: In school, Rob’s nickname was “Option 3.” If you ask him why, his response is “The world is rarely binary.”
Lina Khan, Implementation Team
Why did Lina join EWB? … “It’s sort of a long story. After binge-watching the show Parks and Recreation, I learned about VolunteerMatch.com. The website matches people to local volunteer opportunities, and EWB came up in my search.” Lina doesn’t have an engineering background, but thought, “how could I not go to a meeting?” We’re glad she did! Even though she accidentally went to the wrong building at first, she eventually made it EWB and now is joining the team in traveling to Cameroon.
She is excited to meet the community members involved on the project, seeing what’s been constructed and accomplished, and helping figure out how to keep it all going. She is also excited about visiting the schools, meeting the children, and trying out local food.
Fun Fact: When Lina volunteered at one of DC’s museums a few years ago, she was walking up a stairwell and found a dark speckled butterfly resting on the wall. It had escaped from its exhibit. She told one of the naturalists, who let her pick up the butterfly and hold it in her hand. She had to give it back, though.
Aileen Craig, Implementation Team and Health and Safety Officer
Aileen has been involved with EWB on and off since sophomore year of college. She first became interested when taking a tour of Carnegie Mellon, before deciding to attend, and a current student told her about Engineers without Borders. She loved the idea of using her engineering knowledge and experience to directly help people.
For this trip, she is excited to be able to apply her engineering skills in a hands-on fashion, as well as meet the people of Mbokop.
When not traveling to Cameroon, she enjoys attending music festivals. She is originally from Rochester, NY, and moved to DC about a year ago for work. She is the happiest outside, and loves hiking, running, swimming, or just sitting outside with friends, family, and a glass of wine.
Here’s how you can help back in the States
Our work in Mbokop would not be possible without the donations from individuals like you and fundraising from community members in Mbokop. For each piece of the system that is implemented, the community contributes a portion of the cash. The community is continuously fundraising and finding means to save up for the completion of this project. We hope that you’re inspired to contribute to their cause along with them.
EWB-DC has three active projects: one in Cameroon, one in Panama, and one in El-Salvador. All of our team members are volunteers who donate time, expertise, and energy after their jobs or days in classes. We are a mix of professionals and graduate students who came together to contribute various areas of expertise. Our efforts would not be possible without your support. Please consider donating to EWB-DC today to help contribute to our projects around the world. On behalf of our communities and hard-working volunteers, thank you for your support!
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