Immersion Trips

U.S. Mexican Border Immersion | San Diego

This program will explore the impact of living only 15 miles from the U.S./Mexico Border and the challenges faced by families, local farmers, businesses, and the large Chicano community. Participate in community driven initiatives and live the realities by combating the stereotypes immigration has been given right here in one of the most important areas involving this issue. Meet the Amigos Car Club, a grassroots organization that has curbed gang-violence in urban areas, bring water to immigrants crossing the border with the founder of Border Angels, Enrique Morones and travel from Otay to the Pacific Ocean to join the border patrol on a tour between the fence and the wall, highlighting the extreme differences between life on two sides of a wall.

For more information, visit the Via International website.

Racial Justice Immersion | Saint Louis and Memphis

Fr. Augustus Tolton was born a slave near the town of Hannibal, Missouri (home to Mark Twain). He became the first Black-identified Catholic priest in the United States. Students will visit the site of his Baptism and his tomb. In addition, students will learn about the history of slavery by visiting the Lincoln home and museum, Mark Twain’s home, and the site of the Dred Scott trial. They will also visit the site of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, which launched the Black Lives Matter Movement, and they will meet with those struggling for justice today.

The featured activity of the Memphis destination is the National Civil Rights Museum on the site of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. It is also home to one of the most famous Catholic social service sites, St. Jude’s Hospital, all in the cradle of Rock and Soul.

Activities Include:

• Discussions led by local resources on the history and current situation of racism in society and the Church.
• Meeting local young people to discuss racial justice, ideally at Jesuit schools.
• Visit two Underground Railroad stations
• Visit Fr. Tolton birthplace and tomb
• Visit Delta Sharecropping Museum
• Visit National Civil Rights Museum
• Visit Lincoln Museum, home, and tomb
• Visit to the Dred Scott exhibit
• Ride to top of the Gateway Arch
• Visit to the Mark Twain Museum
• Visit site of Michael Brown’s death
• Tour of Memphis Confederate sites
• Tour of New Cathedral in Saint Louis

Indigenous Culture, Spirituality and Ecology | Santa Fe, New Mexico

This inspiring and transformational educational program offers local and visiting student and adult groups the opportunity to experience community-based, real-life learning. Hands-on learning, community dialogue, and volunteer service learning activities are offered in Santa Fe, New Mexico around the issues of Indigenous Spirituality, Catholic community, and ecological justice.

Real-life learning activities are shaped to support specific learning objectives such as: Sustainable Living, Food Security, Environmental Stewardship, Catholic Social Teachings, Architecture, Adobe, Women's Studies, Chicano Studies, Ethnic Studies, Health and Well-Being, and Decolonization.

For more information, visit the Community Learning Network (CLN) website.

Working Boy's Center | Quito, Ecuador

While in-country, Fairfield students will partner with the Working Boy's Center, a family-centered total development program, geared towards providing education, vocational training and life-skills development for the working children of Quito and their families.

Founded in 1964 to address the educational needs of boys working on the streets shining shoes, the WBCs objective has been to eliminate poverty among working children and their families. To date, over 6,000 families or around 30,000 people have left poverty forever as a result of the Working Boys' Center program. In 2007, the Working Boys' Center commissioned an external study of the impact of operations on its beneficiaries. The results concluded that the WBC method has successfully inserted 75% of its graduates into society and the labor market, due to the integral education received at the WBC.

While partnering with the work and accompaniment of the WBC, program participants will have the opportunity to engage with a variety of programs and projects, including teaching with year-long volunteers, working in the center's workshop, dispensary, soup kitchen and surrounding mission stations, as well as working to build a house for a local family in a community-sponsored program called a "minga."

Learn more about the Center for Working Families.