Tai-Ring Teh on humanitarian engineering and the impact of mentoring

When the Indian Ocean tsunami hit in 2004, hundreds of thousands lost their lives—and millions more were forever altered.  

For Tai-Ring Teh, a civil engineer, the tsunami recovery set him on an unexpected path as a humanitarian. Using his engineering skills to help provide clean water for communities who had lost everything in Aceh, Indonesia, he has since devoted his career to supporting people affected by crisis.  

From the Solomon Islands to Rwanda, from Nepal to South Sudan and beyond—Tai-Ring has used his engineering skills to help communities gain or regain access to safe water and improved sanitation. 

Today, Tai-Ring shares this wealth of experience as a RedR Australia roster member and associate trainer, where he is passionate about mentoring the next generation of humanitarian engineers. 

In this episode, Tai-Ring chats with Sally about his formative experiences in the humanitarian sector, the life-sustaining value of water, and why mentoring is essential to developing our next generation of humanitarian and development leaders. 

You can read the episode transcript here.

You can join our conversations on LinkedIn and Facebook.  

You can find out more about RedR Australia’s training courses here.

Host: Sally Cunningham 

Guest: Tai-Ring Teh

Producer, engineer and composer: Jill Farrar