Donor Spotlight: The Society of Women Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Olivia D’Souza

For Olivia D’Souza, choosing a career in electrical engineering, stringing together a circuit board, and working with a potentiometer is easy. What is difficult is navigating a time difference with a country on the other side of the planet so she could demonstrate those talents to girls at the Sheerni Boarding Home in Jodhpur. “Our first problem was the timing. How are we going to get over this ten and a half hour time difference?” Nevertheless, she prevailed. “It was pretty late at night for us (9:45 pm Saturday) and it was an early morning for the girls (8:15 am Sunday), but I think it worked out well.”  

Olivia, today a rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin Madison, was carrying on a tradition started by her predecessors in the school’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). In 2019, students from the UW-Madison SWE traveled to Rajasthan and held in-person workshops on engineering at Sambhali Trust projects. The future engineers enjoyed it so much that when they returned home, they immediately began fundraising for another trip the following year. 

Then Covid hit, all travel was canceled and the original group of students who traveled to India graduated and moved on to their next adventures. In early 2022, the new class donated the money they raised to Sambhali U.S. But they wanted to do more. 

“We were not able to go on this trip, [but] we wanted to form personal connections with the girls at Sambhali; we wanted to create something interactive,” states Olivia. In January, they connected with Sambhali U.S. president Shereen Arent who offered to help facilitate a virtual program when she visited India in March. 

Shereen was thrilled to learn of this group and their generosity: “It turns out I arrived as a volunteer in Jodhpur in January 2019 within a few weeks of when the SWE group had been there. The Sheerni girls were excited to tell me what they had learned about engineering from the American college students. Because of the influence of the SWE workshops, they asked if I could do a workshop on electricity—which I did but certainly not at the same level as the SWE students. I love how this first group of students passed on their passion for supporting the women and girls of Sambhali to a new group of students and am in awe that in two years of working at concession stands they raised $7500 to support Sambhali.”  

At the workshop this March, Olivia and her co-presenters, Loukia Agoudemos (Biomedical Engineering) and Divya Danthuluri (Industrial Engineering) wanted to show the girls, “how vast and diverse and amazing engineering is and where you can go with it.” Each of them explained different types of engineering including their specialties. Olivia, who remembered how enthralled she was when she created her first circuit board, demonstrated to the girls how changing wires can lead to different colors on LEDs. “As soon as I lit up the circuit, I just saw their faces light up with the biggest smiles and wide eyes. I felt so proud and happy that their reactions were the same as mine.”

Following the demo, the students started sharing their lives with each other. “My favorite part of the workshop was the three of us talking with the girls of Sambhali. They have so much to give and provide their communities. It was a moment of inspiration for us. I really enjoyed designing the workshop, but the best part was getting to talk with the girls.”  

But that is not where the sharing ended. Thirteen members of the UW SWE, including Olivia, are pen pals with many of the girls at Sheerni. They have shared letters and photos via Google Docs with each other. 

Olivia’s involvement with Sambhali is personally meaningful, as she was born in Satara, in the Indian state of Maharashtra (about 750 miles south of Jodhpur) and moved to the U.S. as a baby. She was in Rajasthan five years ago when she and her family toured northern India while visiting family. 

The students of UW SWE continue to raise money via concession sales at school sporting events, and they hope to visit Sambhali Trust in January 2024. The connections they have made with the Sheerni students help keep their passions for their studies going.  

As Olivia explained, “The girls at Sambhali, I hope they know how inspiring they are. We get so caught up in our own whirlwinds that the small but great things are forgotten about. Working with them has reinspired a lot of us here.”