Engineers for International Development - ICE South West and RedR UK South West Local Group

On Thursday 12th July, I attended the ICE South West and RedR UK South West Workshop for Engineers for International Development, sponsored by Pell Frischmann and Black & Veatch. Despite a mishap in communications with the event location and a brief shower (yes, there was 10 minutes of rain) the event was thoroughly enjoyable and very inspiring.

As one of the co-ordinators, I had an understanding of the topics for each of the Workshops sessions, but the actual content was left to the guest speakers from RedR, ShelterBox and MSF. And they didn’t disappoint! Each session was interactive, grounded in real life events and created good discussions. Following the Workshop sessions, there was an evening talk on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, by Lynn Cutler from Glade.

My two takeaway points from the event, have to be the enthusiasm and passion of all the Volunteer Speakers, and more profoundly my own realisation of how little appreciation I have actually had for the UNSDGs.

I have been guilty of ignoring the UNSDGs and marginalising them to “not being relevant to me”, but they are, they are relevant to us all and are not just an “international concern”. Of the 17 UNSDGs, If I had to pick only 5 SDGs, being the 5 priority concerns that I am truly passionate about and inspired to change, then I would choose; 5- Gender Equality, 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation, 13- Climate action, 1- No Poverty, 2 – Zero Hunger.  Looking at these 5 SDGs alone, I know there are examples of relevance in the UK, and more locally to myself in the South West.

Our current Heat Wave is a cause for concern, consideration and action under SDG13 alone. If climates are changing, we need to adopt a more resilient, sustainable use of our environment and this then links to our use of Water and Sanitation -SDG6. But No Poverty, Zero Hunger and Gender Equality - SDG1 ,2 and 5 are all also relevant. There are children within our country, all around us, who are only getting one hot meal a day, normally at school. There are cases of teenage girls not attending schools because they cannot afford sanitary protection and this is affecting school performance, potentially perpetuating Gender inequality. These goals are relevant to us all, to our country, our culture and our future – they are impacting us here and now!

A great video shared at the Evening Talk – was Home – The Global Goals– Love it!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GjLa5kfDfA