AN INTRODUCTION
Leaving Home: Immigration Through the Eyes of Children is an interactive retreat experience for teens and adults hosted in the beautiful Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona.
This retreat focuses on the impact of forced migration from a child's perspective. By exploring their art and stories and through immersive activities, the retreat participant is able to look past the rhetoric surrounding "immigration" and better understand why families leave their homes to come here. Our goal is for retreat participants, equipped with this awareness, to return home with ideas how to engage in positive action on their behalf.
We welcome all individuals and groups from the public and private sector, high school and college groups and churches from all faith traditions who seek to have a better and more empathetic understanding of this issue.
The retreat also includes an opportunity to tour and volunteer at Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson, AZ. (Casa Alitas serves families who have left their home country and are legally seeking asylum in the United States.)
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Register as a Group
Plan a Group Retreat: If you would like to register a group of 10-25 attendees from one organization (workplace, school, church, community group, etc.) we will work with you to choose a date for your group retreat. Please email us at leavinghomeretreat@gmail.com.
REGISTER YOUR GROUP NOW by choosing the Option 2 button below:
Registration Costs for People Attending As Individual: for $150 per person + $25 per day for lunch. Cost Includes cost of program, all materials and light refreshments
(transportation to and from site and Casa Alitas Welcome Center is not included). Registration is non-refundable (unless the retreat is cancelled because of numbers or in case of emergency)
Special Group Rates For 10-25 People Attending From the Same Organization: $1000* total for the group+ $25 per person/per day for lunch. Cost includes cost of program, all materials, light refreshments (transportation to and from site and Casa Alitas Welcome Center is not included).
Registration is non-refundable (unless the retreat is cancelled because of numbers or in case of emergency)
*For example 10 attendees would cost $100 each + lunch. 20 attendees would cost $50 each+lunch.
*Email Us for Special Rates for Border Ministry Groups
Please Note: The minimum of people required to run the retreat is 10 and it can accommodate up to 25. Registrants will be contacted when that minimum is reached so they can make travel arrangements. If the retreat is cancelled due to lack of registrants, you will be notified by the registration deadline. Registration is non-refundable unless the minimum number of 10 is not reached. Once retreat is confirmed please keep in mind start and end times when planning your travel and stay.
About
Leaving Home: Immigration Through the Eyes of Children is focused on the impact of migration on children and families and the ways in which we are called to welcome and engage community action.
We ask questions like “What would it take for you to leave your home and your country? What would you bring with you? What would your journey be like? How would the trauma of leaving home, navigating the immigration system, and starting over again in a new country impact your health and your future? What would it take for you to find a sense of belonging? How do you hope you’d be welcomed? These are some of the areas we will explore together as we immerse ourselves in the experiences of those who have been forced to flee their homes and come to our country.
During the three-day retreat, participants will examine the artwork and poems created at the Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson by children legally seeking asylum in the United States. Through this creative telling of their stories, carefully crafted individual and group activities, and volunteering at Casa Alitas, participants will develop an understanding of the journeys of these children and families and the faith and hope that sustains them. When they return home, participants will be empowered to create an action plan in their own communities inspired by the experience with the support of the retreat facilitators.
Our intent for the retreat is that attendees better understand the experiences of families who migrate; so that they gain empathy and understanding and advocate for these children and their parents.
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"In 'Through the Eyes of Children', creators Gale and Mick brought this heartrending and complicated issue to a very personal level - where activities put us at least as much as possible into the hearts and shoes of children immigrants, exposing the many layers of their physical and emotional trauma both in coming to and being accepted by our country.
The artwork of the children, videos, testimonials and yes, in some, their memorials are both deeply moving and inspirational. Buttressed by well-sourced informational experts and data, I appreciated how much the retreat gave us a 360 degree view into the situations these children face.
At some point, I realized just how much we 'assume' about things — and how many layers there are in getting to a deeper understanding. That understanding was truly motivational for me, and I will be acting upon the learning I received from this experience. Thank you for all your incredible work, Gale and Mick."
- Jan Rowe 5/18/22
In March 2023, I participated in Leaving Home: Immigration Through the Eyes of Children . ..As a professional in this field,... I did not expect to be profoundly moved and changed by the tangible way they (the facilitators) have been able to educate and share on forced displacement, the "crisis" at the border and our relationship to these events regardless of where we live. Their education and art background bring the experience to life, inviting people to experience the external while also examining the internal. This fully inclusive experience speaks hard truths, builds bridges, and looks toward next steps and advocacy.
-Kendall Martin. 2/29/24
Senior Communication Manager
Episcopal Migration Ministries
Details
Plan a Group Retreat
If you would like to register a group of 10-25 attendees from one organization (workplace, school, church, community group, etc.) we will work with you to choose a date for your group retreat. Please email leavinghomeretreat@gmail.com.
Location: Episcopal Church of the Apostles, Oro Valley, AZ
***Includes visit to Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson, AZ on Day 3 of the retreat (transportation is not included)
Lodging: There are many hotel and AirBnB options available. Please see here for a list of local options.
Registration Costs for Individual Persons Attending Includes cost of program, all materials and light refreshments (transportation to and from the site and Casa Alitas Welcome Center is not included in cost). Registration is non-refundable unless the retreat is cancelled due to registration numbers or in case of emergency.
*Additional cost of $25 per person/per day for lunch.
Registration Costs For 10 or More Persons Attending From the Same Organization: Includes cost of program*, all materials and light refreshments (transportation to and from the site and Casa Alitas Welcome Center is not included in cost ). Registration is non-refundable unless the retreat is cancelled or in case of emergency.
*Additional cost of $25 per person/per day for lunch.
*Email Us for Special Rates for Border Ministry Groups
Transportation: Please plan for your transportation to and from the airport (if flying), as well as daily transportation to and from Episcopal Church of the Apostles and also transportation to Casa Alitas Welcome Center. See here for transportation options.
Tucson: See here for a list of things to do and see in Tucson.
Please Note: The minimum of people required to run the retreat is 10 and it can accommodate up to 25. Registrants will be contacted when that minimum is reached so they can make travel arrangements. If the retreat is cancelled due to lack of registrants, you will be notified by the registration deadline. Registration is non-refundable unless the minimum number of 10 is not reached. Once retreat is confirmed please keep in mind start and end times when planning your travel and stay.
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Meet the Team
Gale Hall, Co-Creator
Gale Hall is a retired early childhood professional (MA, ECE – Fairfield University) who recently moved from NH to southern AZ. During her career she worked on state and national early childhood and family literacy initiatives and advocated for young children, families, and their teachers.
She ended her career as a professor of Early Childhood training students to be future teachers. Upon moving to AZ, she began making quilts for newly immigrated children at Casa Alitas in Tucson, AZ. There she became involved with the Art of Asylum exhibit featuring the artwork of children, most of whom had immigrated from Central America in 2019.
“The artwork of children immigrating to the US has found me and transformed me. I was moved to develop an interactive curriculum that helps to immerse and engage participants in the authentic stories being told in that art. As I see myself in their stories, I realize that this could easily have been me. I hope that participants will ask – Now that I know, what can I do? I hope the experience helps to bridge our humanity and make us better people.”
Gale was asked to create the 2020-2021 Migrant Quilt which was on exhibit with 20 other quilts in the collection at the AZ Historical Society . The lives of 225 people who died that year in the Tucson sector of the Sonoran Desert trying to reach safety in the US are memorialized in the quilt. Clothing of migrants collected on established trails in the desert were used to make the quilt so that deaths resulting from the Desert as Deterrence and other US policies could be commemorated. https://www.migrantquiltproject.org.
The AZ History Museum in Tucson exhibited Gale's
Welcome Quilts, a project championed by Voices from the Border as part of their mission of creative advocacy around immigration. In an effort to counteract words of hate and fear, quilts contain messages of welcome and hope from people across the U.S. to those seeking safety and asylum. The year-long display entitled "Welcome Quilts: Migration, Art and Hope" closed in April 2024. The exhibit, along with its accompanying curriculum, is now available to travel to venues across the country. (For more information, contact Collections Manager, Jace Dostal at jdostal@azhs.gov)
Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera,
Co-Creator
Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera moved to Tucson, Arizona in 2017. She has a BFA in Illustration from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver and has taught art to both children and adults. She is a multi-media artist whose work primarily focuses on the rights and protection of children and her personal experience with childhood trauma. https://www.micksmessage.com
Her journey to understanding the issues of migration began when she went with a delegation to El Salvador in 1990. The trip was to accompany Salvadoran people while they commemorated the 10th anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination. When she returned she created artwork that correlated the suffering of the Salvadoran people to the suffering of Jesus on his last days on earth, using the stories of the people she had met. She also became involved with a group called Project Salvador that promoted grassroots community development through funding of projects in El Salvador. She visited El Salvador a second time with this organization.
After moving to Tucson she saw the news reports of children separated from their families and abandoned in detention center cages. She was convinced that she had to do something. She decided to revisit the art she had created thirty years before. This time her series of drawings depicted the struggles of asylum seeker families. (who at that time came primarily from Central America) This became the Way of Asylum. Since 2020 this website has been viewed by people all over the U.S. and the world. https://www.thewayofasylum.com
She has also had the privilege of creating posters, banners and art for a bi-national asylum advocacy group called Save Asylum. https://www.saveasylum.org/
"I see my art as part of a quest to work for change in the world. I hope it lifts up the stories of asylum seekers and compels people to see that they are just like us, full of beauty, hope and resilience."
Since 2019 she has volunteered at Casa Alitas Welcome Center, creating art activities and art spaces for the children who stay there. She has also created multiple art pieces of welcome for their guests. (including a life- size Latina Statue of Liberty who holds a migrant child and is surrounded by monarch butterflies- a symbol of migration).
