Frequently Asked Questions

What is Los Niños, and what is our partnership all about?

Los Niños is a community based program with offices in San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico, offering over twenty five years of experience working in the United States/Mexico border region.  They facilitate service learning trips to Tijuana, Mexico for college students.  The immersion service experience offered by Los Niños has the potential to fulfill and enhance the missions of the Office of Community Service, the Student Assistance Center, and Temple University as a whole.

The Los Niños organization works hand in hand with communities in Tijuana focusing on community development issues, education, and cultural awareness.  They do so by providing international participants with a balance of field experience, study, and cultural activities.  All of these activities are coordinated and supervised by Christine Phillips, Los Niños’ coordinator, and her staff.  The field experience focuses on community-directed construction projects, most commonly centered around public schools and their self-identified infrastructure needs.  This aspect of the experience usually consists of hands on construction projects facilitated by community members.  The educational component is met by evening lecture and discussions facilitated by local university professors from a variety of disciplines focusing on topics such as the environment, immigration, public health, human rights, history, politics, and economics.  Throughout the experience, Los Niños offers participants a variety of opportunities to gain a firsthand understanding of the culture along the Mexico-US border.  These opportunities include a visit to the Tijuana Cultural Center, a tour of Chicano Park, a tour of the border led by Volunteer Mexican Police, and interaction with various groups working with specific populations – migrants, women, children, etcetera. 

Temple’s program will center on the immersion service trip to Mexico during winter break (December 16th - 23rd, 2006).  The program will be rooted in the tradition of service learning by combining service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity changes both the recipient and the provider of the service.  This will be accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.

Team participants will be required to attend a series of bi-weekly sessions to discuss various issues pertaining to the work they will be doing and the experience of the communities in which they will be living and working.  In collaboration with the campus community, experts from the Temple community will offer insight and facilitate these discussions.  Topics will include border issues, economics, human rights, and foreign policy.  Our program will emphasize the greater goals of increased community involvement and action for social justice. 

While in Tijuana, we will fully participate in the service, educational and cultural components of Los Niños’ program.  In addition, students will facilitate a daily session of reflection and processing in the evenings.  This allows students to articulate the impact of their experience, and to make direct connections between the daily activities and the education component. 

Team members will be responsible for sharing their experiences with the campus community.  Each member will be required to participate in at least one information session where they will do a short PowerPoint presentation on the experience and societal impact of the Program.  This will provide an opportunity for discussion within the campus community about the implications of the experience, to arouse interest among future applicants, and to bring practical application to the campus community. 

Who can apply to be on the team?

Temple’s partnership with Los Niños is coordinated by the Office of Community Service in the Student Assistance Center under the Division of Student Affairs.  Participation is open to all Temple University students from all campuses.  There are some basic criterion that potential applicants must meet before filling out a formal application - minimum GPA of 2.5; have no UDC record.

The application process is comprised of a written application from which a pool of candidates will be chosen for interviews.  The interview process will consist of a group interview, followed by half-hour individual interviews.  A group of ten students will be chosen to join two administrators for the Los Niños team. 

What will be required of me if I am chosen to be on the team?

This experience is intended to be a holistic service learning experience.  Subsequently, our program will culminate with the immersion experience in Tijuana, Mexico from January 5th to the 15th, 2006.  However, your commitment goes far beyond that.  You will be required to attend our first team meeting (time TBA).  There we will choose the best times and days to meet as a team.  Each team member will be required to bring a $75.00 DEPOSIT to secure your position.  This is to cover the expense of a name change on the airline ticket in the event you relinquish your position on the team.  This money will be returned to you at the time of the trip.

We will then meet once every two weeks at which time we will have discussions pertaining to the work we will be doing and issues pertaining to social justice.  There will be periodic readings (short articles) that team members will be provided with in order to be better prepared for these discussions. 

During these meetings, we will also coordinate our fundraising efforts.  The team will work together to raise the funds needed for our immersion trip. 

After the trip, each member will be required to participate in AT LEAST ONE information session where we will do a short PowerPoint presentation on the experience and societal impact of the Program.  This will provide an opportunity for discussion within the campus community about the implications of the experience, to arouse interest among future applicants, and to bring practical application to the campus community. 

Can I apply to go on more than one immersion trip in the same year? 

Can I go on more than one immersion trip in the same year?

Immersion trips run through the Office of Community Service (Project Mexico, Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge, and The Lakota Project) require a year long commitment.  Because of this commitment, as well as the limited number of spaces available, a student can not participate in more than one immersion program in the same academic year.  However, you may apply to more than one program in the same academic year.  If you are invited to join a program and you accept that position, your other applications will become "inactive."

Copyright 2006.  Temple Volunteers, Temple University