Join us on May 21 at 3 p.m. in the Ocotillo Room of the Kino Conference Center to hear representatives from Global Response Management (GRM) and Solidarity Engineering. In addition, one of our Quail Creek neighbors will describe her experience at the Reynosa, Mexico, camp.
GRM is a veteran-led international medical non-governmental organization (NGO). GRM exists to bring emergency humanitarian medicine to vulnerable populations displaced by conflict, war, or disaster. GRM believes that everyone has the right to the best possible care on the worst days of their lives.
Brendon Tucker began working at the U.S./Mexico border in 2018, helping start Team Brownsville where he aided the first wave of asylum seekers in Matamoros. In 2019 he co-founded Resource Center Matamoros and worked as camp manager in the Matamoros refugee camp. Throughout 2019 he volunteered with Proyecto Corazón to help asylum seekers navigate the legal system and process legal documents for court during the first Migrants Protection Protocol. In 2019 he joined the GRM team as a logistician in Matamoros. Tucker currently leads GRM’s Reynosa medical response, overseeing security protocols, volunteer physicians, nurses and paramedics, as well as local partners, to deliver evidence-based care at all sites daily.
Judy Weimer is a family nurse practitioner with a doctorate in clinical nursing and a diploma in international nursing and public health from the Institute of International Medicine. Her practice has always focused on the underserved, often on Indian reservations, rural areas and in Reynosa.
Solidarity Engineering is a woman-founded, woman-led engineering nonprofit that focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in areas of displacement. Representing Solidarity is Christa Cook, field engineer and founder. The goal is to improve living conditions through the implementation of projects that address both physical and mental health. Solidarity works in low-resource, often-hard-to-reach places, focusing on providing means for the communities themselves to identify and implement projects. It was started by three women who are committed to including traditionally marginalized populations directly in projects to create more sustainable solutions.
Cook’s background includes a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Louisiana State University, a stint in the Peace Corps in Peru, and master’s degree in sustainable engineering from Villanova University. In 2020 she co-founded Solidarity Engineering alongside two other engineers.