Peace Gardens and Safe Spaces

While Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) addresses global engineering challenges, we also champion social justice in our own backyard. We aim to bridge resources with innovations, and we engineer solutions that target meaningful community involvement. By creating locally-minded projects, we can empower communities through engineering problem-solving.

We recently provided engineering support to two U.S. community projects that address social justice and create safe spaces for living and healing.

When Interstate 94 extended through St. Paul, Minn., it tore apart the predominantly Black neighborhood of Rondo. Hundreds of houses, churches, businesses and a school fell to make way for the highway. Six hundred families, 75% of whom were Black, were displaced.

Fifty years after these unjust events, the Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner and St. Paul Mayor held a healing ceremony. They formally apologized to the community and promised to do better.

While the interstate that tore through Rondo caused irrevocable material damage, the intangible fabric of the community persisted. Former residents are determined to rebuild community infrastructure.

The Urban Farm & Garden Alliance (UFGA) is a network of eight community gardens throughout Rondo and nearby Frogtown. These gardens are small oases of food and flowers offering weekly children’s environmental, gardening and healthy eating education programming. The surrounding residents value the gardens as a gathering place where they can receive spring plants and vegetables at no charge.

The UFGA gardens also serve as safe spaces to share ideas and resources and to cohost workshops and activities with other St. Paul organizations. In this way they honor the earth and each other as they grow vibrant, healthy communities grounded in racial and environmental justice.

UFGA’s Peace Sanctuary Garden was ready for some upgrades, and that’s where EWB-USA came in. Our volunteer engineers helped pave parts of the garden and constructed a greenhouse.

The new pavement allowed for better accessibility while maintaining adequate rainwater absorption. The new greenhouse extended the growing season by providing a controlled environment for seeding plants. We also plan to design a solar-powered rainwater catchment system for the gardens.

UFGA was initiated by AfroEco in partnership with Gordon Parks High School. They facilitate children programs for Maxfield Elementary Schools students. By improving the Peace Sanctuary Garden, EWB-USA hopes to create a space where the community can gather for resources, healing and inspiration.

COVID-19 did not impact everyone equally. How do you slow the spread of the virus by washing your hands if you don’t have access to clean water or soap? How to you adhere to stay-home orders if you don’t have a place to call home?

EWB-USA addressed this inequity when our Community Engineering Corps (CECorps) staff and local volunteers teamed up with organizations in Denver and Aurora, Colo., to help plan Safe Outdoor Spaces.

Safe Outdoor Spaces are temporary, managed campsites approved by the cities that serve people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic.

The idea, which worked in other cities, is to offer tents in protected areas to people experiencing homelessness while also providing them with sinks, toilets and access to social services. The camps EWB-USA helped develop serve some especially vulnerable populations. One camp served women and trans individuals, and the other sheltered people testing positive for COVID-19.

All sites are equipped with electricity, hand-washing stations and bathroom facilities. The camps help bring more people toward safety, services and permanent supportive housing.

Our CECorps team helped design the ideal layout for the site and advised on drainage and placement of the tents’ platforms. Through their work, our team is ensuring that people have access to safety and shelter.

“Our projects may involve pipes, water, concrete and roads, but at the end of the day, they are about people–bringing people together to serve each other and creating a greater good,” said Clare Haas Claveau, EWB-USA’s chief consulting programs officer. “The projects we design not only build community, they build communities up. Covid-19 has not only demonstrated our interconnectedness, but also the need for essential engineering services that increase community resilience.”