Los Embajadores’ oldest site is in Tijuana with the Proyecto Salesiano Tijuana (PST), which was established in 1987. The Salesians are an order of Catholic priests whose mission focuses on working with at-risk or poor children. Their work is concentrated in six oratories placed throughout Tijuana. Each oratory is a community center intended to offer five key services to those whom it serves: a home where they are loved, a workshop where they acquire skills, a school where they learn, a playground where they play, and a church where they pray. Each is designed to promote the full development of the young people it serves. The six oratories spread throughout Tijuana are each in varying stages of development.

Los Embajadores began working with the Salesians in 1988, and our relationship with them has grown as both the Salesian project and the Los Embajadores program have evolved. In the earliest days, we assisted the Salesians in constructing the oratories’ first buildings: simple wooden structures, many of which still stand. Our work now involves helping to expand the facilities at each oratory.

Groups at this site stay in the Salesian Center (in colonia Castillo) located in Tijuana just across the highway from the US border. Groups divide into two or three smaller groups each morning and go out to work at two or three of the Salesian oratories. Each day they have lunch in a local home. Through these lunches and our work projects at the oratory, groups have the opportunity to enter more fully into the life of the community. Our projects at the oratories are always lead by a local foreman, and often community members will work alongside groups throughout the week. In the afternoon, groups often play with local children, joining them in soccer, basketball, and other activities. At night, groups return to the Salesian Center for dinner and reflection.
There they share in the life of the Salesian Center, celebrating mass each morning with the community of priests, as well as Salesian volunteers, who come from all over the world to spend the summer or a year working with the Salesians. Our groups in Tijuana also visit the Casa del Migrante one night during their week. At this home for migrants, the group hears a talk about border issues and shares a meal with men who have just been deported from the United States or who are seeking to cross the border.

What is an oratory?

Salesian Center Image Gallery 2008

To find out more about the Salesians, please see Salesian links.

Click here for more information about Tijuana and the border region.

To see a sample daily schedule at the Salesian Center in Tijuana, please click on the pdf link below.

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Salesian Sched.pdf	57.94 KB