What we hope will make it unique is that it will also be an international learning center. We want to run retreats here at the same time we're reaching out to the local community. The sprawling urban area that includes Nogales in Santa Cruz County, Ariz., and contiguous Nogales in Sonora, Mexico, lives up to the checkered reputation of U.S.-Mexican border towns. Tiny homes made of packing crates, cardboard, scrap lumber and corrugated tin hug the sides of steep ravines littered with garbage, abandoned cars and rusting household appliances. Children and teenagers who live in the festering drainage tunnels under the border come out to run the streets, ripping off tourists or travel-tired stragglers from the south.
Most streets are narrow, rutted dirt paths winding up the sides of dusty hills.
Schools are so overcrowded that students attend classes only four hours a day. BorderLinks hopes Casa will increasingly become the answer. In 2001 BorderLinks hopes to launch a new day care center while promoting cultural, educational and sports activities for neighborhood schoolchildren. Officials are also developing small community banks to foster small businesses and other economic opportunities. Last year more than 900 people representing church groups, community organizations and universities from the United States and Canada took BorderLinks-sponsored tours ranging from one day to three weeks.