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1 October 8, 2010 ENGINEERING WORLD HEALTH GUIDELINES FOR EWH CHAPTERS Starting and Operating an EWH Chapter Engineering World Health inspires and mobilizes the biomedical engineering community to improve the quality of health care in vulnerable communities. We achieve our mission through innovation and effective alliances with great partners.

EWH Chapter Guidelines

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October 8, 2010

ENGINEERING WORLD HEALTH

GUIDELINES FOR EWH CHAPTERS

Starting and Operating an EWH Chapter

Engineering World Health inspires and mobilizes thebiomedical engineering community to improve the

quality of health care in vulnerable communities. Weachieve our mission through innovation and

effective alliances with great partners.

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CONTENTS 

Section Page

Overview of an EWH Chapter 3

How to Start and Operate an EWH Chapter 5

Designing Novel Technology

EWH Meetings and Joint Chapter Activities

Kit Builds

Equipment Evaluation and Repair

Fundraising

Other EWH Chapter Activities

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Engineering World Health

Overview of an EWH Chapter 

 You have rare talents and skills that can really make a difference to the people of developing countries

and EWH can help you do just that!

Engineering World Health Chapters are formed to enable students to contribute to the mission of EWH:

To inspire and mobilize the biomedical engineering community to improve the quality of health care invulnerable communities. More specifically, EWH chapters provide members with enhanced opportunitiesto participate in EWH activities, such as traveling to developing countries to work in hospitals, designingnovel medical technologies appropriate for resource-poor settings, building medical devices for use indeveloping countries, and promoting understanding and goodwill between the developed and developingworld.

Four core activities of an EWH chapter are:

Designing novel technology – specialized tools and equipment that EWH will manufacture fordonation to developing countries

 Attending meetings and joint chapter activities – international or national conferences andvisits between chapters to host joint eventsBuilding EWH kits – medical equipment designed for developing countries

Equipment evaluation and repair – medical equipment to be put into service in thedeveloping world

Each of these activities is described in its own section in the pages that follow. Core activities are whatset an EWH chapter apart from any other campus activity. In addition, there are lots of other activities

that your chapter can host and you should feel free to be creative to use the resources available at yourschool and to come up with new and exciting ways for your chapter to achieve the goals of EWH.

 Any student can be a member of an EWH chapter and benefit from participation in chapter activities.Students also have the option of become an EWH Affiliate through paying a small annual fee to EWH.EWH Affiliates have more options and privileges as explained in later sections and on the website.

Benefits for EWH chapter membersEWH chapters enable their members to help people who are less fortunate. Chapter members learn abouthealth care challenges unique to the developing world and apply their technical skills to supportimprovements. EWH provides support and advice to chapter members about chapter activities, includingdesign projects. Some EWH programs are exclusively available to chapters, including the EWH Design

Competition and eligibility for travel grants for joint chapter activities.

Costs to affiliates and chaptersTo form a chapter, there must be a minimum of three paid-up EWH Affiliates – the core officers of thechapter – and a faculty advisor. Other students who become members of the chapter are encouraged to

become full-fledged EWH Affiliates in order to qualify for additional individual benefits. Chapters typicallyraise funds or secure grants from their school to cover these costs and/or support other chapter

activities.

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 Alternatively, chapters select the university-funded option. In this case, the students’ university ordepartment pays an annual fee for a package of benefits, including EWH Affiliations for 10 students andreduced fees for EWH conferences and design competitions. For the latest details about universityaffiliation, check out the University-Funded EWH Chapter page of the EWH website, linked from the Forma Chapter page.

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Engineering World Health

How to Start and Operate an EWH

Chapter 

To form a chapter you need to:•  Find core members of whom at least three are paid-up EWH Affil iates

•  Find a faculty advisor

•   Appoint a president, vice-president and treasurer (all of whom should be EWH Affiliates)•  Submit a Chapter Agreement and Chapter Roster for approval by EWH headquarters. The

Chapter Agreement is slightly different for student-funded and university-funded chapters.

•  Pay EWH your fee along with Student Affiliation Application Form for each new EWH Affiliate•  Plan activities in the first semester or first year 

Find core membersThe first step is to find a core group of people to become members of EWH—people who are willing tobecome the leaders of something new on campus while having some fun. You only need a few people at

this point, perhaps three to five. Ask the faculty if they know of any students that might be interested orif they will announce an organizing meeting in their classes. Talk to the leaders of the studentorganizations like BMES and IEEE.

If you are having trouble getting the core membership together, then you may want to run a trial activity.

Often the best way to get people interested in your organization is to let them get a taste of it. A firstactivity could include a short presentation about biomedical engineering and developing countries (EWHcan help by providing some PowerPoint slides for this) followed by an activity. Choose something which is

easy, fun and really ties into the mission, like a EWH Kit build. You can contact EWH about purchasingkits to build medical devices designed by EWH that will be distributed to the developing world. With a

handful of flyers posted around the university you will usually get enough attendance to find four or fiveothers who share your enthusiasm for improving the quality of health care in developing countries.

In order to have an officially recognized EWH chapter, you will need a minimum of three EWH Affiliates.EWH Affiliates pay annual dues to receive access to full benefits and services from Engineering WorldHealth. Your chapter may have members who are not EWH Affiliates, but we encourage all of yourmembers to become affiliated. As an alternative to having your chapter members pay individual EWH

 Affiliation fees, you might explore the option of a university-funded chapter. In this arrangement, youruniversity or department pays annual dues to EWH for a package of benefits to the chapter, includingEWH Affiliation for 10 students. The full details of university affiliation can be found on the EWH website.

Find a faculty advisorGaining the support and commitment of a faculty adviser is essential to success. You must have a faculty

advisor to be recognized as an official EWH chapter. They can help you secure space for meetings andbuilds, solve problems, and interact with your school’s administration. They may also be able to help you

raise funds from your department or university. Try to select an adviser with whom you have had contactand who you believe will be interested in helping developing countries.

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Plan activities for the first semester or year that will define the character of your chapter  Activities are the most important part of your chapter and the ones you choose will define what characteryour chapter will have. EWH offers many interesting activities for chapter members, and you may be ableto think of your own activities that help your affiliates reach their goals of helping people, both indeveloping countries and your own local community. Read the overview of a chapter to get a summary of

the chapter activities, and check out the details about each activity given in these guidelines. Theactivities you choose will depend on the interests of your members and the opportunities available atyour school or in your town.

The more quality activities your chapter offers, the more fun and rewarding it will be to participate in. Tokeep your chapter vibrant and productive, we recommend that you plan and conduct at least twoactivities each academic year. Don’t forget that EWH is available to advise on ideas and planning and tohelp with technical issues that may arise.

Other notes about operating a successful chapter:FundraisingChapters are encouraged to raise and bank their own funding to support their activities and cover any

expenses they might incur.

Registering as a student organizationWe recommend that your EWH chapter registers with the Office of Student Organizations (or similar) atyour school. Becoming a student organization will typically give you benefits at your school, including an

annual budget, a bank account, and opportunities to advertise your group and recruit chapter members.

Leadership elections and changesEWH recommends that chapters hold elections in the spring for the president, vice-president andtreasurer who will take over in the summer. This allows the new leadership to get prepared to takecharge at the end of the academic year in spring. The summer is a great time to be planning the next

year’s activities.

Once the changeover occurs please notify EWH headquarters. You may even consider submitting theChapter Roster and dues for the following academic year in the spring to avoid the crunch at thebeginning of the following school year. If there are ad hoc changes in the officers or in the faculty advisor

at any time of the year, please communicate the change to EWH headquarters as soon as possible andprovide the full contact information of the new officer(s) or faculty advisor.

Communicating with EWHWe request that you stay in touch with us about your chapter’s activities throughout the year. By stayingabreast of developments at your chapter, we can better help you to find opportunities that can benefit

your chapter and the developing world. Also, your chapter may have new and exciting ideas that may beuseful to us and to other chapters. We will look to highlight our chapters in our newsletter, eNews, andon our website, so please send photos and/or stories about your activities so that we may recognize andpromote your chapter. We are very interested in your activities and overall chapter experience, as your

success as a chapter contributes to the overall success of EWH.

Send all hard copy documents to Engineering World Health, The Prizery, Suite 230, 302 East Pettigrew

Street, Durham, NC 27701.

For all issues related to your chapter, please direct emails to [email protected] to reach an EWH staff

member who can respond.

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Engineering World Health

Designing Novel Technology 

 A well-designed and carefully considered technology appropriate for use in resource-poor settingscan have a tremendous impact on the ability of a developing country hospital or clinic to deliver

health care. Your chapter may find a design project to be a fun and intellectually stimulatingactivity. You might also want to speak with your engineering faculty about offering EWH designprojects as options to fulfill requirements for senior design projects for teams and individuals. In

this way you can offer an interesting alternative design project for the students at your school aswell as harnessing the energy of students working towards their degrees for the purpose ofdesigning technologies for the benefit of the developing world.

Through interviews with health care providers in developing countries, EWH identifies health carechallenges specific to the developing world and what new technologies might deliver the most positiveimpact for their patients. From this first-hand knowledge, EWH compiles and broadcasts an annual listdesign challenges: the Projects that Matter. This list is updated each August and published on the EWHwebsite. Please feel free to contact EWH at [email protected] to receive more info or documentationabout any of the listed projects.

Once a successful design is completed and the product passes field testing, EWH will help you explorethe best options to distribute the novel technology to the developing world. For example, we could selectone of three primary strategies depending on what is most appropriate for the particular technology. The

manufacturing method chosen will strongly influence the design process and determine whether or not atechnology is viable for the developing world.

1) 

Local Manufacture – In this arrangement the device will be constructed from parts readily

available in the developing country. This type of product is preferred, as it saves costs on

shipping and distribution and makes the technology available to anyone in the world who hasaccess to the design plans. Also, construction of the device in the developing country providescommercial opportunities for the manufacturer and can be a boon to the local economy. Forthese reasons, this is often the most preferred distribution strategy.

2)  Kits – This type of distribution is suitable for designs that contain parts not available indeveloping countries, but that can be assembled simply from components that are commerciallyavailable. In this case the kits can be assembled by students or other groups in developedcountries before delivery to the developing world.

3)  Traditional Production – Some designs have custom parts or require complicated assembly,perhaps requiring sophisticated and/or expensive tools. In this case the device will have to be

manufactured by a company in the developed world, perhaps a start-up that focuses on thenovel technology. In this case, intellectual property rights would likely need to be sought so thatthe design can be protected or licensed to a manufacturer. This manufacturing method can be

expensive. If funding cannot be found, it might not be viable for producing technology that isaffordable in developing countries.

Please note that all of our design challenges include the preferred manufacturing method in theirspecifications. In some cases, local manufacture and/or kits may be the only viable option(s).

Two special types of projects are included in our Projects that Matter list, detailed below.

Legacy projects —There are some projects where significant progress has been made,but not enough to complete the project. You’ll need to write to get the details for each

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project. It is possible that a past design was capable of partially addressing thechallenge. Perhaps the design needs to undergo more rigorous field testing, or a certainmodification or improvement needs to be made to prior work. These legacy projects canbe very high impact with comparatively little additional effort.

Research Projects —Sometimes a request for a device reaches EWH, but there is so

little work done in the area that it isn’t ready for design yet. For these instances, webroadcast a research project to groups that can gather the preliminary informationnecessary before a design project can begin.

Many of our design submissions come from our university chapters. Individuals, groups of students,senior design teams, BMES or IEEE chapters or just a bunch of friends may also submit designs. Designscan be submitted at any time. If your submission meets the design criteria, you may receive up to $150

from EWH to build a prototype.

EWH will provide funding for prototypes of Projects that Matter to groups that meet the following criteria:

 A.   Your design must be documented, including

•   A description of the theory of the device (approximately two pages) including the specific

specifications (accuracy and such) that your device will meet.•   A detailed parts list, including source, quantity, part number, price (in quantities of 1 and 5)

and anything else that would be required for one to order the parts. Your design can be kit-able (requiring no custom parts). Some projects require kit-ability.

•  Engineering drawings including construction drawings for the enclosure, if there is one, top

and side views of the completed item (multiple if required).•   A requested amount (up to $150) for the prototype with the detailed budget to support the

request.•   A cover letter stating your team members (name, address, telephone and e-mail for each)

and to whom the prototype check should be made and sent. Additional documentation maybe provided, if you deem it necessary. Your cover letter must state if you are designing a

locally produced item (all parts on the parts list are from a developing country of origin), a kit(some parts must be ordered singly from a US distributor and shipped to developingcountries), or a typical product (all components purchased and assembled in the US and thenshipped to developing countries). Preference is often given to locally produced items.

B. 

 You must give EWH assurance that the intellectual rights to the design will remain in the publicdomain. This allows EWH to manufacture and/or distribute the final design to improve healthcare in the developing world.

C.   All submissions must be made electronically in Word format.

We prefer that you write us before beginning the design ([email protected]). That way, we can give youany updates or clarifications on the design criteria and/or past work on the project.

When your design is complete with a working and tested prototype, please contact EWH so we can worktogether to determine the best method for manufacturing and distributing your device. At this point, wewould like to see the following documentation in order to fully understand your design:

 A.  New diagrams that include:

•  Detailed construction instructions. If your design is to be locally manufactured, you need toprovide instructions for assembly of the kit of parts in developing countries with no special orcustom parts. No special tools must be required. Assume a person in developing countries

could construct your device from, typically, a sequence of photographs of each stage of

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construction. If the design is a kit, a high school student should be able to construct it froma series of photographs and instructions in English. You can assume that the student knowshow to solder or is learning to solder. For traditional products, assembly diagrams are usuallysufficient.

•  Testing instructions so that the builder can confirm that it is working.•  Operating instructions with clear pictures.

B. 

Calibration data and testing data to show that your design works.

EWH Design CompetitionWe also offer an annual EWH Design Competition. It is open exclusively to EWH chapters and offers cashprizes to the winners to fund the further development of their novel technology. Participants are invitedto present their work at an international conference where awards are presented. Please check out thewebsite for the latest details about the Design Competition, or email [email protected] for more information.

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Engineering World Health 

EWH Meetings and Joint Chapter Activities

EWH ConferenceEWH sometimes hosts conferences to gather student participants in our programs, including the chaptersand the EWH Summer Institute. In the past, attendees have also included EWH sponsors andrepresentatives from engineering firms and global health organizations. Attendance at this conference is

an interesting opportunity for chapter members to learn more about global health issues as well as havethe chance to meet with potential partners and/or employers. 

Other MeetingsEWH often makes presentations or hosts sessions at other meetings or conferences. EWH has a booth

and presents at the BMES Annual Fall Meeting each year. EWH may also present at other global health orengineering conferences throughout the year. These events are a good chance for you to meet with theEWH staff and members of other chapters. EWH may notify you of meetings that may interest you, and

please check the front page of the website to see news about any conference that EWH might attend. You can also inquire by emailing [email protected].

Joint Chapter ActivitiesEWH has a small fund available to enable modest grants for travel between chapters. This could be agreat chance for two or more chapters to come together and host a joint EWH event. Possible ideas for

 joint chapter activities would be kit builds, repair sessions, fund-raising events, a joint discussion of yourrespective chapter activities, guest speakers, or a series or combination of multiple activities. You shouldalso feel free to get creative and consider other activities, such as medical equipment repair, lab tours,clinical exposure sessions, travel talks, language training, or cultural events.

The hosting chapter will have to decide carefully what activities will work best with visiting chaptermembers. A visit could last for just one day or for a weekend or more in which sleeping arrangementswill have to be made for the visiting chapters. You should also be encouraged to plan social events as

part of any joint chapter visit. A visit can be a great chance for you to meet like-minded people withsimilar goals and academic interests. Who knows? The people you meet from other chapters could endup being friends and colleagues for years to come.

If you would like funding or guidance from EWH about planning a joint chapter activity, please [email protected]. Please keep in mind that funding may be somewhat limited, and we might not beable to fund lodging or food in addition to travel. We encourage you to seek funding for joint chapteractivities from other sources, including your school or student organization office.

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Engineering World Health

Kit Builds

When EWH receives completed and field tested designs for novel medical technologies, the device maybe made into a kit for manufacture. In the kit model of manufacturing, the device can be built from parts

readily available in developed countries. EWH sells these kits of parts, and they can be assembled bygroups of people interested in providing valuable medical devices to hospitals in vulnerable communities.The assembly may require some basic technical skills, including soldering. EWH then collects the

completed kits and distributes them to the developing world through the EWH Summer Institute, BMETTraining Program, and our partnerships with non-governmental organizations and biomedical equipmenttechnicians that deal with medical technology in developing countries.

 Your chapter may contact EWH about purchasing kits. Kit builds are exciting hands-on activities thatgenerate tangible products with the capability of having a significant positive impact in the developing

world. The construction of a single kit forms a medical device that can benefit many people, perhapssaving human lives.

In addition to chapters, EWH markets the kits to middle school and high school classes, the Boy Scouts,classes that teach soldering as a trade or hobby skill, and any other group or individual that might be

interested in helping to construct kits for humanitarian and/or educational purposes. The kits make anexcellent educational tool, because in addition to requiring the builder to learn or practice technical skills,they reinforce inter-disciplinary academic connections between technology and its capability for social

benefits.

 Your chapter might consider finding groups in your area that would be interested in the EWH KitsProgram. In addition to building kits as a chapter, an excellent chapter activity would be to guide othergroups through the process of building EWH kits. The group or class you are working with could buy the

kits and then you could conduct a class or workshop about building them. In this way you could teachother groups, such as local high school or middle school classes, about the value of providing appropriatetechnology to the developing world while also imparting some valuable practical skills. These types of

activities would be good publicity for both EWH and your school’s engineering program.

For information about any of our kits and for a current listing of kits for sale please visit the website. As achapter in good standing, you are eligible for a discount in price for all kits. There are also discounts forbuying kits in bulk. These discounts can add up to make kits even more affordable for your chapter. Please understand that the price for the kits goes to cover the costs to EWH of the Kits Program,including the price of parts, marketing, and employing full-time staff to respond to inquiries, makeshipments, finalize designs, provide documentation and educational materials, distribute finished kits tothe developing world, and otherwise run the program. Please direct all inquiries about kits to

[email protected].

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Engineering World Health 

Equipment Evaluation and Repair

Evaluating and possibly repairing medical equipment bound for developing countries is one of the mostinteresting and rewarding activities a chapter can participate in. Some hospitals in developed countriesreplace medical equipment with newer models as often as every three or four years. This creates a large

surplus of medical equipment that has been decommissioned from developed world hospitals, and muchof this equipment is still serviceable. Numerous charities have formed to manage this donated equipmentand ship it to hospitals and clinics in developing countries where it can improve the ability of local healthcare providers to offer diagnosis and treatment to their patients. In many cases, these charities do nothave the means to evaluate and repair equipment before shipment, and as a result WHO estimates thatas much as 80 percent of donated equipment does not work in developing countries. In fact, much of thedonated equipment is not working before it is donated. By working with equipment donation charities,EWH chapters can help improve this situation.

There are numerous reasons that donated medical equipment might not be functional, and some of thesolutions are quite simple. The equipment may be missing an essential accessory, such as a power cable,

patient electrode cables for an ECG, or an arm cuff for a non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) machine.Sometimes the machine is actually functional, but the group that delivers it and the developing worldtechnicians are not able to get it to work due to a lack of experience with the machine and/or suitable

documentation to determine its proper operation.

Our chapters can provide equipment evaluation services to charities and other donating organizations to

ensure that the equipment they ship is functional, complete, and packaged in such a way to facilitate itsproper implementation in the developing world. Chapters can accomplish these goals by ensuring that

each piece of donated equipment is functional and has all of its essential accessories shipped with it. It is

also best if chapters can talk with the people who will deliver the equipment and make sure theyunderstand how to use it properly. Providing an operator’s manual from the manufacturer or simpleusage instructions in the native language of the target hospital can also increase the chances of theequipment being put into service.

In addition to the developing country hospitals, equipment evaluation benefits the EWH volunteers bygiving them hands-on experience with medical equipment that provides them with advanced technicalskills and knowledge. These activities are an excellent preparation for students applying to the EWHSummer Institute.

Starting an equipment evaluation and repair program at your chapter:There are several issues you will have to resolve before you begin an equipment evaluation program atyour chapter. What outside groups might your chapter want to partner with? Who will instruct chapter

members in the evaluation of medical equipment and/or supervise equipment evaluation sessions? Whenand where will evaluation sessions take place? Starting an equipment evaluation program at your chapterwill take some determination and a significant amount of preliminary legwork. This type of program might

not work for every chapter, but for some chapters it is a central focus that can be quite rewarding.

 Your chapter will need to find a local charity to partner with, and EWH can help you with this process. You might also want to investigate any local connections you might have through your university, or eventry some Google searches to identify local charities. Still, it may not be possible to find a suitable partner

for every chapter, depending on the unique situation at each location.

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PLEASE NOTE THAT ENGINEERING WORLD HEALTH IS NO LONGER INTERESTED TO RECEIVEDONATED MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES COLLECTED BY EWH CHAPTERS.

Resources for successful equipment evaluation and repair:We recommend that you purchase the book “Medical Instrumentation in the Developing World” by our

chief technical advisor, Professor Robert Malkin. This book is an essential guide for evaluating andrepairing medical equipment for the developing world, and we send a copy with each of the EWHSummer Institute participants on their hospital visits. It contains useful information about the properfunction of each type of equipment you are most likely to encounter, along with detailed instructions

about how to determine whether it is working and how to fix it. The book can be ordered from thePublications page of the EWH website. Prices start at $59, and there is a $5/book discount for EWHchapters in good standing. It would be a good investment for any chapter looking to host equipment

repair sessions.

Other useful resources can be provided by the equipment manufacturers. Many types of equipment comewith instructions adhered to the machine or attached in the machine in the form of sliding pull-out cards.If possible, you should try to track down the operator’s manual from the organization that has receivedthe equipment donation or the hospital that originally donated it. This might not always be possible, so

you may have to resort to looking for informational materials online. If you contact the manufacturer andexplain the charitable purpose of your work with their equipment, they will sometimes agree to send youa free copy of their operator’s manual, or service manual if repairs are necessary.

EWH strongly recommends that you have an adviser present at all equipment evaluation and repair

sessions. This person can be your faculty adviser or another qualified faculty member. You may wish tofind a professional engineer or biomedical equipment technician in addition to or instead of a facultyadviser at these events. EWH can help you try to identify a local engineer or technician that is interested

in working with your chapter.

Establishing a successful equipment evaluation program at your chapter will take a considerable amountof effort and planning. You may find that it is beyond the scope of what is reasonable for your chapter toaccomplish, especially as you are first starting up your chapter. Still, the potential benefits of this work to

the developing world can be quite substantial. 

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Engineering World Health 

Fundraising

EWH Chapters will want to raise their own funds to cover their administrative costs and offer excitingactivities. We recommend that chapters attempt to secure funding from sources within their school tocover annual affiliation dues so that these costs will not have to fall to the individual affiliates. Other

common costs could include travel, purchasing kits, food for meetings or celebrations, or tools or partsfor technology design or equipment evaluation. There are also fees for special EWH programs such as thedesign competition and conference. Please note that university affiliation will significantly reduce these

fees for your chapter. In the past, our chapters have had success securing funding in the following ways:

 Academic Departments or School of EngineeringMost academic departments and schools have a budget for student programs and activities. We

recommend that you talk to your faculty advisor about the best way to approach this and that youattempt to secure university funding for your chapter’s annual affiliation. Be sure to point out the benefitsavailable to the chapter from EWH, including 10 student affiliations, and reduced prices and fees for EWHkits, the EWH Design Competition, and the EWH Conference. If your school is not interested in auniversity affiliation, they may still be willing to fund individual student affiliations or EWH activities.

Student OrganizationsOnce your organization is registered with your office of Student Organizations (or similar) it is typicallyeligible for an annual stipend from your school.

Corporate SponsorshipMany engineering companies give donations to raise their profile and promote goodwill in their

communities. In the past, local corporations have given significant grants to support our chapters in

design projects or kit builds.

Fundraising Events You may be able host an event on or near your campus to raise funds for your chapter. Planning anevent can be hard work, but it can be a good way for chapters to make several hundred dollars.

Fundraising events can have the additional benefit of raising awareness about your chapter at yourschool and providing a platform for finding new chapter members.

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Engineering World Health

Other EWH Chapter Activities

EWH chapters succeed when they focus on offering their members opportunities they can’t get otherplaces. These activities can improve their job skills or help them make career choices. You should feelfree to develop chapter activities outside of those specifically described in these guidelines. Some ideas

for other activities are detailed below. Please keep EWH informed about any new ideas or opportunitiesfor activities that your chapter develops. A good idea for a new activity at your chapter may also be agood idea for other chapters!

Clinical exposure events By developing a close relationship with a local hospital, perhaps the teaching hospital of your ownuniversity, you can request opportunities for chapter members to learn more about medical problems, the

practice of medicine and the importance of biomedical engineering to successful outcomes. Clinicalexposure is one of the criteria for selection of students for the summer program. You should be able toarrange visits to the operating room or intensive care unit of the hospital or for your members to spend aday shadowing a surgeon. You can also visit the operating room of the local veterinary hospital.

Language eventsForeign language skills and sensitivity towards other cultures is key to the success of Engineering WorldHealth and other organizations that seek to improve the quality of health care in any developing country.

 You can plan events that help your members meet these challenges. One of the criteria for selection forthe summer program is foreign language exposure. You can simulate language and cultural barriers. For

example, invite a guest speaker to come and teach enough vocabulary for very basic communication in aforeign language, perhaps one that nobody knows, then have your members speak and understand each

other in order to win some game (Simon says or any other simple game is sufficient). There are also anumber of excellent cross-cultural communication exercises that your group can download from the web.

 Visit the sick and help Visit a nursing home to determine what equipment is being used, and then return to explain equipmentto patients that are connected to equipment. Design cards to explain the use to patient. This is great

preparation for developing countries, where using the working equipment correctly is half the battle.

Host a forumHost a forum and invite speakers with expertise in international development, international health, orpoverty alleviation to discuss current issues in developing countries. Include participants from developingcountries. This is a great way to have your chapter members understand the context of the EWH missionand the work of the chapter.

Food nightPrepare food from a specific developing country. Find someone on your campus from that country to helpwith the preparation. These are great events to couple with a language class. Everyone could learn 5-10

words of a foreign language and play Simon says in that language. Or, combine food night with a travelphoto night. Have your members share their photos from their trips overseas. This can also be combinedwith a going-away or homecoming party for those members participating in the summer program.