John La Roche - Water Engineer

John has been involved in water engineering for the past 40 years including 15 years as Director of Water for Survival, a NZ charity which raised funding for water supply and sanitation projects in some of the world's poorest countries including Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, India, Nepal and Papua New Guinea. Projects funded were very basic low technology activities, such as hand dug wells, hand drilled bore wells, gravity pipelines, spring protections, rainwater tanks, pit latrines, and health education programmes. John and other Water for Survival members were able to visit these projects to ensure that the best outcomes were being achieved with the funding provided from New Zealand. John's working career involved the design and commissioning of drinking water treatment plants in Auckland, Hamilton, New Plymouth and Stratford. Water for Survival amalgamated with Oxfam New Zealand in July 2003.

Dugald MacTavish - water resources design and management

Dugald has worked in water resources design and management, both on and off-farm, for approaching 30years. After 3 years with MAF (Agr. Eng. Div.), he studied groundwater resources at post-graduate level in Israel. He moved on to a job in the United Kingdom that involved him in agricultural, irrigation and groundwater engineering projects in Egypt, Algeria and Indonesia. On completing a Masters in Irrigation Engineering at Southampton, he worked in Swaziland designing irrigation and drainage systems for the Commonwealth Development Corporation. He has since started Irricon Consulting Engineers in NZ and developed hydrologic modelling expertise particularly in groundwater. More recently he has developed an interest in planning sustainable systems for the decline in the availability of cheap fossil fuels.

John Cocks - waste engineer

I am a waste engineer with an international consulting firm (MWH New Zealand Limited) specialising in solid waste and wastewater engineering. More specifically I specialise in strategic planning for waste and wastewater, small community and on-site wastewater systems, and  solid waste and wastewater solutions for developing countries. My work has taken me to Hong Kong (wastewater solutions for communities in the New Territories), Laos, Maldives, Philippines, Vanuatu, Nepal, and China. Also, a recreational pursuit is mountaineering and I've travelled to Kenya, Uganda, Peru, Bolivia, Equador, Colombia, Chile, Pakistan, China, Tibet, Nepal and India. Such travel has involved visiting distant and developing communities, living in such environments and using local facilities. From my travel, I've built up a large photographic collection of people, villages and facilities such as local toilets and waste disposal areas (and mountains).

Dr Pauline Norris - sociologist

Pauline is a sociologist who is interested in health and healthcare in developing countries. She is particularly concerned about inapppropriate use of antibiotics, especially in developing countries. Last year she worked at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, looking at the ways people have tried to reduce antibiotic use in various countries. Many of these were community education projects and one involved school children learning about appropriate antibiotic use and then educating their families and communities. In New Zealand, Pauline
worked with a school teacher who designed material for school children, their teachers and parents, about germs and antibiotics. Increasing handwashing so that diseases are not spread between people, would be one way to reduce the need for antibiotics, so that's why Pauline is really interested in this project.

Pauline is a Senior Lecturer and the Leader of Pharmacy Practice Research in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Otago, and a member of the Dunedin Water for Survival committee.