Cloud, you gave me my first good chuckle of the day. Thanks
Engineers Without Borders does a lot of things, but the two main initial tasks are to get the community a good, reliable, clean and safe water supply. The second task is then to work with the community on sanitation issues, which covers a wide range of issues from cleanliness, washing ,latrines, and other simple health related concerns. Any of these might include basic structural design as applies to hurricanes or earthquakes. Many communities around the world don't even have these basics needed for a healthy survival. So, they are the main focus.
Of course natural phenomina can occassionally occur and thus after the water and sanitation are achieved, the focur could shift to structures in areas where this can be an issue. Many times the materials available are rudimentary, so it may be easier for a latrine design to spend the $'s to get the in ground part where it doesn't leach out to local water supply sources, but make the top structure simple so that it is lost in an "event", but is easy to reconstruct in a day or so. Houses or course you'd prefer to stand up to an event; there are techniques to have the 4 corners survive and any upper floor, but to make the walls sacrificial.
