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BorderLinks trips are best described as experiential travel seminars. We offer the opportunity for participants to carefully examine and struggle with many issues that shape the US-Mexico border.

Our primary activities are meetings, conversations, and experiences with persons holding differing perspectives and viewpoints on the wide variety of social, economic, faith and political issues at play in the border region.

A typical day consists of three or four meetings, shared meals, and conversations in which participants are exposed to the viewpoints of academics, policy makers, and activists. Most importantly, we will talk with individuals whose lives are directly affected by the policies and processes we're discussing.

Each day will include time for reflection as a group on our experiences. Educational activities such as a role play to explore the dynamics and forces in the global economy, or community scavenger hunts to help our participants better understand life on the border are often part of programming. Some groups choose to become involved in an action/ reflectionproject at our community center in Nogales, but all of our trips prioritize time to experience and study the situation of the borderlands.

Although we'll spend some time in the United States, much of the trip will take place on the Mexican side of the border. There, activities will likely include tours of maquiladoras and discussions with factory management, meetings with workers and families in their communities, and talks with a variety of activists and organizers struggling to bring about social change.

Group participants will often spend one or several overnights in a homestay with families in communities on the Mexican side of the border.

The border region is an area where many of the patterns of international economics and politics affecting all of our local communities can be viewed in sharp focus.