The Campus

At its peak, Nest Tijuana served up to 300 children daily, ages 0–10, at one of Tijuana’s largest migrant shelters, housing up to 4,000 asylum seekers from Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico. The campus itself was designed for children: Brazilian Pepper trees, vegetable gardens, pathways and play yards invited exploration and wonder. Outdoor classrooms and indoor learning spaces gave children room to do what children are meant to do — play, build, create, ask questions, and find their footing after upheaval.

Flexibility as a Practice

Nest Tijuana’s team understood that serving families in crisis required constant adaptation. When shifting migration patterns brought shorter shelter stays and rapid turnover, the team created a twice-weekly drop-in program — open to adults, children, teenagers, and grandparents alike. Up to 70 community members at a time gathered to connect, play, rest, and recharge. Teachers described participants breaking generational and family boundaries to bond across the shelter community. That capacity to pivot — to meet the community where it was — defined Nest Tijuana’s approach across its entire life.

The “Nester” Model

One of Nest Tijuana’s most distinctive features was its training of adult asylum seekers — known as “Nesters” — as assistant teachers. This initiative offered families valuable work experience, childcare skills, and income during an otherwise uncertain period, while deepening the program’s roots in the community it served.

Community Partnerships

Nest Tijuana built lasting partnerships with Al Otro Lado, UNICEF, the Refugee Health Alliance, Save the Children, Glasswing International, and local healthcare providers — creating a health referral system that ensured children received medical care and parents received mental health support. These partnerships extended Nest’s reach far beyond the classroom, embedding the program within a broader network of care for families in transition.

Why it ended

That same attentiveness to community need is what ultimately led to the program’s close. By 2026, migration activity at the Tijuana border had sustained a significant decline, and the needs of the community had shifted. Redirecting resources to where they were most urgently needed felt like the most faithful expression of Nest’s mission. Families did not lose their community when Nest closed. Local partner Love Does is continuing programming for preschool-aged children within their existing school, ensuring that the children and families Nest served still have a caring, stable place to belong.

Eight years of work in Tijuana brought Nest international recognition, transformative partnerships, and a community of children, families, and educators that the organization will always carry close. That legacy does not end with the program. It lives in the Crianza con Amor curriculum now expanding to refugee communities worldwide, in the educators trained in Tijuana who carry the pedagogy forward, and in the thousands of children who walked through Nest Tijuana’s doors.