Sustainable humanitarian engineering in practice – the East Bali Poverty Project

Abstract

The paper describes the humanitarian engineering interventions made by the East Bali Poverty Project (EBPP), a private charity founded and managed by a British civil engineer in 1998 in Desa Ban, an impoverished area on the northeast slopes of Mount Agung, Bali. The abject poverty of the area – which had no access to the outside world, no schools, no clinics, no sanitation and no rivers or water supply – stemmed in part from the cataclysmic eruptions of Mount Agung in 1963, when a blanket of ash, sand and gravel was deposited over much of the area, ruining an already poor and fragile landscape. The first 10 years of EBPP's targeted interventions, chosen by the local people – improving health and education for their children – were the first priorities and were presented in previous Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings. This paper examines the many humanitarian engineering elements that have been adopted and carried out in a sustainable manner in a very culturally sensitive and challenging physical environment over a 17-year period.