Supporting remote community development

Case study overview

With her sights set on becoming a rollercoaster designer, but no mathematics A level, university initially proved a bumpy ride for Rebecca. But the ELS programme funded a trip to Uganda, which led to a successful career in international development.

An uphill battle

“I always wanted to be a rollercoaster designer,” says Rebecca. But despite being good at physics, nobody told her she needed to study mathematics to be an engineer, which restricted her choice of university. She chose the University of Warwick, which offered an equivalent to A Level mathematics as a module, but it was tough. “I think getting through my first year of university is my greatest life achievement,” she says.

Back on track to Africa

Rebecca realised rollercoaster engineering wasn’t for her and developed an interest in international development. She set up the University of Warwick branch of Engineers Without Borders, along with two other students. Her lecturer travelled to Uganda every summer to teach and she decided to use her ELS programme funding to join the trip, having spoken to a local hydropower turbine manufacturer in the Midlands that donated some turbines. 

The small team worked with the community to build a small hydropower scheme for a school in the mountains. “The ELS programme funding enabled me to get there and to sustain myself while working on the project. I learned how to weld, design, build, construct and project manage in really difficult circumstances.”  While she spent the rest of the ELS funds a return trip to Uganda and a tour of China to look at water structures, her first visit to Uganda was her stand-out experience. “That trip completely defined my career trajectory.”

The ELS is a good way of connecting with people in different disciplines

Around the world in infrastructure projects

Rebecca started working at Mott MacDonald as a sustainability master planning engineer, but found that it wasn’t the right fit. She took a sabbatical and worked in Mexico with Engineers Without Borders, where she designed a filter for a biogas system with farmers. When she returned, she joined Mott MacDonald’s hydropower team in Brighton as a Mechanical hydropower engineer. “That really kicked the international career off,” Rebecca says. She worked on projects in Georgia, Pakistan, Slovakia and Uganda, before moving to Albania for a year to work on a large-scale hydro power construction. It led to her becoming chartered and “really defined my career and my skillset,” she says.

After six years, she left Mott MacDonald for the Department of International Development and worked as an infrastructure advisor at the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), where she was the advisor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for water infrastructure and was focused on doubling the capacity of water networks in two cities in the east of the country. “The project I was the technical lead for is the largest urban water project in the DRC and the first project to bring the water private sector into the country. It was completely pioneering as well as being then DIFD’s largest urban water project at that point in time.”

A sense of belonging

Rebecca has just joined Arcadis design and consultancy firm as a project manager. She will oversee a major water infrastructure project in the UK. “I’ve gone from being told I don’t belong, to feeling like I belong nowhere else and the engineering sector is kind of like an extended family,” she says.
“The ELS programme was incredibly empowering, because it was something from the profession that says, ‘yes, you can, and yes, you belong’. It really gives you motivation.”