Meaningful, lasting impact.

You’ve probably heard this phrase before. Distill down the mission statement of any organization working to make a difference in the world, and it likely gets encapsulated by these three simple words.

At EWB, our systemic, iterative and bold approach to change is unique, but our end goal is the same — meaningful, lasting impact.

With a network of 36 university and city chapters across the country, 16 venture teams working in Canada and Africa, and a huge number of supporters around the globe, it’s rare that a day goes by without hearing an inspiring snippet of news from the world of EWB. From a successful chapter event, to the completion of a venture pilot, or any number of other small steps forward along the road to success.

All of these stories, while incredible, are merely fractions of wider, ongoing change narratives. It’s rare that we get the opportunity to share a complete story — one from humble beginnings to now, 10 years later, having achieved the ultimate goal — meaningful, lasting impact.

That’s why we’re so excited to share the story of EWB’s Sharing Computer Access Locally and Abroad (SCALA) project — now more than a decade old, yet still thriving and changing lives. After reading it, we hope you’ll agree that our pursuit of change is one worth supporting, because ultimately it’s your support that makes this change possible.

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Humble Beginnings

Back in 2002, an ambitious team of students from EWB’s McGill University chapter (at the time, led by our current VP Operations, Alex Conliffe) came together to try and address the problem of under-employed youth in communities in the Philippines. The hope was to find a solution that would see out-of-school and under-employed youth step back into the education system, setting them up for better employment opportunities while providing valuable life-skills training.

Under the leadership of Louis Dorval (current EWB Board Member and co-founder of our VOTO Mobile venture), the SCALA team decided to set up Computer Livelihood Training Centres to transfer valuable and employable skills to Filipino communities — a daunting task for a small group of University students with limited resources, even with the local partnership of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. It was a daunting task, but also an exhilarating one. Reflecting on her time with SCALA, Alex can “remember the excitement at seeing something emerge from our chapter that had its own leaders…people like Louis having an idea and taking the steps to make it happen.”

From the very start the project was driven by, and ultimately succeeded because of, an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion to continue driving for results. This spirit was a necessity, especially while working in a resource constrained situation. Louis contextualizes this well: “We had to design everything around this lack of resources. More than 50% of the total value of the project was from local resources (staff, equipment, rooms, etc.) so the sustainability question was completely in the hands of the locals.” The team was also aware of the realities brought on by a technologically centered project: “We were conscious that the computers, already used even at the start of the project, had short lifespans so we did everything we could to ensure that they would be able to raise enough funds locally to fix and replace them.”

Living EWB’s Values

Even in those early days of the project and the organization at large, EWB’s core values were present. The SCALA team was, from the very outset, aware of the need for self-assessment, reflection and adjustment. Louis Dorval remembers how “everyone on the SCALA team was consciously critical, and we ended up refining the model from year to year and from location to location. An additional aspect is that we left and came back on a yearly cycle. So we would do this project for four months in the summer, let it run by itself for eight months while we went back to school, and then return to see if it was still going smoothly (and why or why not) and make adjustments as needed.” This structure allowed for the kind of non-biased, outside-looking-in view that is often so challenging to achieve in long-term development projects. It is one that is instrumental, though, in adapting to on the ground realities and changes.

Megan Campbell (a Junior Fellow at the time, but now a Portfolio Manager with EWB’s Strategy and Investment team) tells a similar story: “This was a project that was really wanted by the cities that worked with us. And we were really careful about only working with cities that could show they were ready and willing to take the project on. I spent two weeks in South Cotabato before we and the city there recognized they weren’t ready for the project yet.”

This commitment to asking tough questions, iterating on ideas and exercising humility are values central to all EWB ventures that exist today. And here they were, present more than a decade ago in a project that today is still thriving.

Measuring Success

• The team’s original partner — Department of Social Welfare and Development — has since set up two more centres, with 10-15 new computers each. They are still using the EWB-implemented curriculum and “train the trainers” approach, and everything is funded locally
• The SCALA project has trained 60 groups of students, impacting the lives of over 2,400 people
• More than two-thirds of those who receive training are employed within six months
• Check out this recent press release from the Philippine Information Agency on the recent SCALA graduates

Change worth Supporting

Meaningful, lasting impact. EWB’s 16 ventures across five portfolios are working to achieve this goal within systems in both Canada and Africa. The SCALA project stands as a great example of what this change can look like, and the impact it can have, more than a decade down the road.

All of us here at EWB are incredibly excited to see this play out within each of our ventures and the systems they’re working in.

How many entrepreneurs will Kulemela Investments have funded a decade from now? How will the growth of their businesses have reshaped the landscape of local communities, and of the Ghanaian agricultural system at large?

What will it look like in ten years when VOTO Mobile’s mobile phone based system is used in every development project and policy design initiative in Ghana? How will this reimagining of citizen engagement alter the relationship between governments and citizens?

How far will the Canadian Fair Trade Network’s influence have spread across Canada by 2024? How many cities and campuses will have become fair trade certified, and how will it impact producers of fair trade goods worldwide?