Category: News

*Content warning: sexual violence. 

by Chelsey Rhodes

Lately I have been really struggling with the reality that EWB, and the broader EWB community and alumni, simply cannot seem to care about the many people injured by the organization. I’m sad about the people who have written to me over the years (I have emails and messages dating back to 2011) about the long-term impacts they are struggling with.

I’m sharing a few documents that paint a disturbing picture (and I have many more in an ever-growing folder). I’d been sorting through old emails, and I came across an exchange with George Roter and Mark Abbott from 2014. Interestingly, it includes the tidbit that I barely spoke in the so-called mediation in 2013 because of suffering PTSD symptoms (and I was in a separate room?!), which contradicts the public statement EWB released about me and has up on its website still, which they continue to circulate and chapters continue to circulate, which I’ve repeatedly told them to take down because it is false and defamatory. (Do they care? No.)

The emails were written in March of that year, after I had been pressured into a non-disclosure agreement in late 2013. The last reply was drafted but then I never sent it; I suppose I considered it futile. It languished in my drafts for years. I guess I am sending it now.

 

Next, I include an email from Mark Abbott regarding a “Serious Incident in Kumasi”, dated June 2014 (only a few months later). This was a violent break-in and attack that caused traumatic injuries to some or maybe all of the 15 people in the EWB house.

*Content warning*

This incident included someone being raped at gunpoint while others hid under the bed.

 

Mark Abbott wrote that the injuries to people were ‘not life-threatening.’ Rape is life-threatening, Mark. PTSD is life-threatening. 33% of rape victims develop suicidal ideation, and 13% attempt suicide. Those stats are probably worsened when your entire organization and community abandons you or turns against you, or if you cannot access support to recover.

The awful part is, THIS WAS PREVENTABLE. If only EWB had listened to my warnings only months earlier; if only they had made the changes I suggested; if only they had listened to repeated suggestions by others over the years.

If only they had listened to Alex who was at that same house a week earlier and warned that it was not safe or secure; she felt so unsafe that she wedged a chair under her bedroom door handle each night. When she found out later what happened only a few days after she had left, she sat in her car and cried and had a panic attack.

If only they had listened to the others in the house who also knew it was not safe and said so. I had directly told EWB, repeatedly, that they were ignoring health and safety issues for staff and volunteers, underpaying and not supporting them adequately with safe accommodations and transportation, thereby exposing women in particular to heightened risk of violence.

EWB is liable for the injuries caused to these people. The Canadian government is possibly also liable for this and subsequent incidents under their funded Volunteer Cooperation Program (VCP), and Mark Abbott’s email is clear that Canadian consular officials were informed. I think there have been, and continue to be, many many incidents like this across many similar volunteer-sending organizations, that will eventually lead to a class action lawsuit against these organizations and GAC (formerly CIDA) for negligence and discrimination. [See: Legal Support for Victims of EWB]. There is no reason GAC shouldn’t be made to properly compensate people for negligently and repeatedly injuring them during their ill-advised attempts at getting Canadian university students to travel to the Global South to position a young, friendly (and now, feminist!) face in front of the destructive aspects of Canadian foreign policy and industry.

These programs should be stopped entirely. The organizations (mostly, the executives) benefitting from this funding need to rethink their entire mandate.

EWB should apologize and support everyone who they have exposed to harm and injury, including those who were targeted or retaliated against by their own staff and executives. They should start a reparations program for communities they worked in doing pointless, self-serving, and destructive stuff. The alumni and remaining chapter community should snap the fuck out of it and start demanding this be addressed. This issue is not controversial in any way.

This is what’s true: what happened to people was wrong. How EWB has publicly handled this was, and is, wrong. They have compounded the damage many times over by their refusal to tell the truth and take responsibility and make amends to people. This is how institutional violence works.

I don’t know if EWB supported any of the people in this ‘serious incident’ in June 2014 (or any serious incident) with counselling, or long-term financial support for the injuries or disabilities caused by their negligence. Given the zero fucks they gave about the long-term damage they did to me, I assume not. People staying in the house that night included Canadian staff and student fellows, and Ghanaian staff members.

Aakhil Lakhani was also assaulted that same summer, 2014, and then retaliated against when they reported it. There were other assaults that summer that went unreported. I mean, why would anyone bother to report anything to EWB? Why the fuck is EWB operating and still getting donations, and people are still making excuses for it? [Instead, why not donate to Aakhil’s legal support fund?]

Even reported assaults were not uncommon. Another document we obtained from 2014, a ‘pulse check’, shows that sexual assault, harassment, and other incidents were happening multiple times a year.

Pulse Dashboard

 

EWB has known about this, for years.

The last document I include is from 2019, when an EWB staff member wrote to the EWB community that there had been a kidnapping of one of their chapter members in the same city as the 2014 incident, but that there had never been any incident there before –an anomaly, they claimed!– so they were not going to evacuate the Junior Fellows who they had sent there. This all happened the same summer that they had concealed the Derek Evans report from the Junior Fellow cohort, which apparently recommended they not be sent at all due to serious unresolved health and safety and management issues. So, EWB repeatedly hid relevant information from students, preventing them from being able to make an informed choice regarding their own safety or to demand better conditions and support from EWB.

 

 

I wrote to the EWB Board and said they were going to get someone killed.

They didn’t reply. I don’t think they care.

I wonder, did Boris Martin, CEO (why does a charity need a ‘CEO’?) just forget about what happened in 2014? Did he forget about what happened to me? Has he forgotten about the multiple people who reported Prateek Awasthi to him, and that he didn’t give a fuck so they all left and are still recovering from that? Has he forgotten about all of the other things that have happened under his watch? What is the utility of this forgetting? Why does the Board continue to sanction all of this?

Does anyone at EWB know what they are doing? What is the point of this organization? Has everyone forgotten that too?

Update: See Youth Coalition’s statement on Prateek Awasthi’s former membership there, and multiple sexual harassment allegations against him that were found to be substantiated. We told the EWB Board about those allegations in April 2019 after we were tipped off about them. They did nothing, even though Awasthi had by then been reported multiple times internally at EWB. 

We just announced we were closing down the project, but we wanted to share some recent media coverage related to harassment cover-ups at Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB).

First, we’ve heard EWB’s founder and former CEO George Roter is currently suspended from the Ontario Liberal Party after our recent podcast and this story in QP Briefing.

Another ex-EWB executive, Prateek Awasthi (who left his Director position at EWB earlier this year) has just had to resign from his Executive Director position at the Green Party of Canada.

CBC news has reported on what happened, including Awasthi’s admission that he helped EWB conceal sexual abuse: 

Awasthi told the party he was part of EWB management’s “efforts to disparage and ignore claims of sexual harassment and assault,” according to an internal investigation report written by outgoing leader Elizabeth May and leaked to CBC News.

It has also been revealed that Awasthi was reported multiple times for harassment internally at EWB in 2019, all while he was publicly disparaging Chelsey Rhodes on behalf of EWB and claiming the issues Total System Failure project was raising were false.

Boris Martin (along with Roter and Mark Abbott) was involved in covering up Chelsey Rhodes’ allegations against Mike Kang in 2013, and it is now revealed that he has been covering up the multiple recent allegations against Awasthi.  Martin remains CEO of EWB despite frequent calls for his removal and people pointing out he has himself been implicated in harassment and retaliation (see here, here, and here)  All four staff who reported Awasthi have left EWB and several spoke to CBC news.

The Board of Directors of EWB, which contains 7 new Directors, continues to refuse to deal with these allegations properly or investigate the executive team (Boris Martin, Shivani Patel) and Board members who participated in the cover-up (Rebecca Kresta, Manissa Patel, and Kaitlyn Gillelan).

This situation now includes top officials in the Green Party of Canada trying to help conceal Awasthi’s past behaviour (when we said “total system failure,” we meant it!).  Awasthi’s resignation was announced on Sunday.

Green Party leadership contestant Meryam Haddad spoke out in support, and denounced the Greens for minimizing and concealing the issue.

PressProgress has more, reporting that Green MPs Paul Manly, Elizabeth May, and Jenica Atwin defended Awasthi’s role in covering up abuse at EWB and presiding over a “misogynistic work culture.” A Federal Councillor who was disturbed by how this was handled and has since left the party, said, “These are three Members of Parliament taking a very disturbing stand on an issue of sexual harassment, abuse or assault… It shocked me.”

Elizabeth May said in an email, “I think we can agree that EWB is a textbook case of what not to do.”

Unfortunately it seems that people cannot help but use this textbook as their rape cultural bible.

More soon, as this unfolds.

Apologies for the delay in communicating. A lot has happened since our last update, including the Total System Failure (TSF) team receiving more disclosures of violent and discriminatory incidents at EWB. Due to the increasing volume of disclosures, we have asked a lawyer to assist us going forward, please read on for more details.

Chelsey and Alex met with the EWB Board twice in 2019, in April and July, the latter time with a lawyer present. We listed many incidents of harassment, assault, rape, and discriminatory behaviour at the organization stretching back a decade. We have repeatedly pushed for an independent inquiry including reparations to those affected, to no avail. Following Chelsey’s public disclosures in January 2019, Aakhil also spoke out publicly (in June 2019) about facing sexual violence and retaliation at EWB, and has been disbelieved and ignored. See here, and here. By now it seems apparent that the EWB leadership will continue to refuse to address this long-standing pattern of abuse at the organization, and will continue to cover it up. This is upsetting in itself, but also suggests there is an ongoing risk of harm to staff, volunteers, and ‘recipients’ of EWB’s work. Without a functioning or responsive Board or executive team at EWB, and with no regulatory body or Ombuds office for the aid sector, we have reached the unfortunate conclusion that there is no way forward except for legal action. We also wanted to make sure that people feel some measure of safety and protection in reporting their experiences, as we are aware of fears due to EWB’s pattern of retaliation towards whistleblowers (and other societal pressures making it difficult for people to come forward or speak publicly). We hope that having some legal support will help people to feel more comfortable pushing for justice. We have discussed the possibilities of individual legal challenges, a group lawsuit, or a class action. However, more information is required on specific incidents, when they occurred, and who was affected. Marcus McCann (contact info below) has agreed to provide legal advice, and he is experienced with human rights and employment law as well as working with nonprofits. He is also familiar with the general issues and concerns.  He has agreed to provide free phone consultations to any current or ex-EWB staff or volunteers (this includes staff/residents in other countries, so please pass this onto anyone you think this might apply to). Speaking with him will help clarify the best strategy going forward; can help you understand how your experience may have constituted a breach of the human rights code, employment law, etc.; and may help you gain clarity on whether you would like to pursue legal action for what happened to you. These consultations will be confidential between you and Marcus McCann and we will not have access to any information shared or informed if any conversations took place. Speaking with him to review your story does not mean you have to move forward with anything; it’s 100% your decision. If you would like to reach out to us as well, please feel free. It would be good to strategize together and support each other. Even if you can’t personally be part of a legal challenge, we can still work together on a broader project of justice. You can contact us at this email or through our anonymous form on our website. Please continue to send in reports of incidents or concerns to this email or form as well. A few notes: If you are not sure if your experience was “that bad” (it is common to underplay/ underestimate the seriousness of traumatic incidents), or unsure if it rose to the level of discrimination, harassment or assault, this is a good time to explore that with a legal professional. Marcus can help navigate that and provide suggestions. If you experienced or witnessed a violent incident, especially if that incident included sexual harassment or sexual violence, this is also potentially actionable even if the incident happened more than 2 years ago. There is no statute of limitations on sexual violence cases in Ontario (and the definition is quite broad). Marcus has already spoken to some of us about our individual cases, and we can assure you of his professionalism and sensitivity. If you would prefer to speak to a woman, this is available and his colleague will be assisting with these cases. Any incidents occurring after Chelsey raised these issues to EWB in 2012/2013 (and was pressured into a NDA) are particularly important to bring forward, as EWB should have dealt with them appropriately when notified. Email Marcus McCann to set up a phone consultation: marcus@millardco.ca Thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences with us, and it has taken a lot of work behind the scenes to get to this point. We hope that this provides an opportunity for people to pursue justice and accountability, and to help bring resolution to a situation that has hurt so many people. In solidarity, Total System Failure team