Welcome and thank you for visiting my page! :) On here I will be providing: 

• Updates on my training for the Vitality Race in London 28th of May 
• Progress on pre departure work 
• Posting fun challenges (for donations ;) )

If you have some more time, you can read more about how your donations will help to support this project, what the project is exactly, who is involved etc.

AND if you would like to know more, please don’t hesitate to contact me! If I could, I would have liked to do all of this in person, but of course that is impossible!

BLOG: During the trip, I will also be documenting my adventures in a blog so you can see how your donation is supporting our work :) 
—> Link TBC 

How will your donation support our work? 

Your donation will not only cover the remaining expenses of the volunteering opportunity but will also contribute to supporting the wider work of spreading engineering and international projects: 

• Other international projects: on our international projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to improve the lives of over 30,000 beneficiaries
• Education initiatives: inspiring young people to get into engineering and directly supporting 28 academic institutions and over 6000 students in the “The Engineering for People Design Challenge”
• Engineers Without Borders Community: supporting members across the UK to help engineer change 
• Fundraising: on implementing robust governance systems and policies for everyone involved in our work 
• Governance: on fundraising activities to sustain the future of our programs 

My story

Just a little bit about me :) I am a mechanical engineering student at the university of Bath working on my final year project which involves developing an emergency pop-up shelter. 

The moment that I knew that I wanted to use engineering to help people was during a lecture where our professor was talking about how lizard DNA can be used to inspire solutions for limb regeneration in humans. Completely irrelevant to engineering or the lecture for that matter…but the message came through and here I am! 

I have lived in and travelled to many countries but can only speak my mother tongues…my French is already fading which is being replaced by Spanish in preparation for Peru. Hope this one sticks!

Random fact: once the whole Bayern Munich football team ran right past me in a park and I didn’t high five them :o 

Future ambitions: work within infrastructure and continue to support such projects! 

The project

“The rhythms of life are dictated by sunlight” - Light Up the World (LUTW)

The ultimate aim of the project is to work towards developing a robust pay as you go solar PV system to increase the accessibility of electricity. This in turn would: 

• facilitate education as it would allow children to work outside of school hours (in the dark) 
• provide economic development and individual monetary power as solar PV would replace kerosene (an expensive fuel) 
• supporting the environment and well being as the fumes released with the use of kerosene harm both the people and the surrounding environment

Therefore it is important that the most affordable and robust design is utilised along with an intuitive social enterprise model to ensure that such programs are sustainable. 

TEAM: members from LUTW, Ruairi (senior fellow), and two junior fellows (myself and Daphne)  

Video from LUTW outlining their motives and progress
https://vimeo.com/131809884

Organisers

Light Up The World (LUTW) is a non-profit organisation focused on providing sustainable energy and lighting to communities as a catalyst for sustainable development. Working in some of the most remote and underserved areas in the world, LUTW installs solar photovoltaic systems and provides solar training to build the local technical support necessary for a sustainable transition away from unhealthy fuels and disposable batteries for energy and light. 

—> More info on LUTW: http://lutw.org/

Engineers Without Borders UK believe people everywhere should be able to enjoy the benefits of engineering and live a life free from poverty. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Within our global community, 1.2 billion people are still living in extreme poverty and 2.3 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services. Therefore, they are working hard to change this by bringing people, ideas and engineering together to deliver solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Together, we can engineer change.

—> More info on Engineers Without Borders UK: https://www.ewb-uk.org/

Great job for making it this far! :) your interest and support goes a long way!