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OUR MISSION
Our mission is to provide community-driven, public health-based engineering for people in crisis.
Solidarity Engineering is a humanitarian engineering organization currently based at the US-Mexico border.
Inherent in our work is the recognition that humanitarian crises are products of complex global relations, historic power imbalances, and environmental injustices. Thus, our organization is built on three main pillars: working in solidarity with communities, working in accordance with the four humanitarian principles, and applying a holistic public health approach.
Each month, we help over 10,000 asylum seekers gain access to water, hygiene supplies, shelter, and education at the US-Mexico border.
Every person has a right to health, humanity, safety, and privacy - regardless of where they are born.
WOMEN-FOUNDED, WOMEN-LED
Started by 3 women working at the US-Mexico border, Solidarity is committed to including traditionally marginalized populations directly in projects to create sustainable solutions.
PUBLIC HEALTH FOCUSED
The goal of Solidarity is to better living conditions through the implementation of projects that address both physical and mental health.
COMMUNITY-CENTERED
Working in low resource, often hard to reach places means focusing on providing means for the communities themselves to identify and implement projects.
HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES
Solidarity Engineering is committed to the promotion of equitable access to services, and we are guided by the four humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. These principles have long guided the work of the Red Cross and are internationally recognized by the UN.
HOW WE BEGAN
Solidarity Engineering's three founders - Erin Hughes, Christa Cook, and Chloe Rastatter - met at the US-Mexico border after all hearing the same podcast in November 2019, about the refugee camp that had formed in Matamoros, Mexico.
When they learned about the camp's limited access to clean water and sanitation, the three individually decided they needed to do something. When each of them reached out, they were told that there was no technical or engineering presence at the camp, but that they were welcome to come down and see how they could help.
After working together for months, completing projects in partnership with the asylum-seekers, Global Response Management (GRM), the Resource Center of Matamoros (RCM), and other partner NGOs, the three engineers decided to formalize.
Solidarity Engineering was inaugurated in November 2020, one year after the podcast aired that inspired them to change their lives.