Travel Opportunities

Visiting the Working Boys' Center

The Working Boys' Center has a number of tour options for university, high school, youth group, church groups, community groups and individuals.  Groups can participate in volunteer immersion experiences, mini mingas or spiritual journeys.  Brief descriptions are available below.  If you are interested in more information on visiting the Working Boys' Center, please contact Sister Miguel Conway.

Spiritual Journey

This trip offers travelers the natural beauty of the Andes mountains, the large capital city of Quito, the quaint small towns and their colorful markets and, on the flip side, the poverty one finds in a third world country.  This opportunity to see how the poor live is an experience one does not get with a travel agency tour.  Only a missionary can share this glimpse of reality with you.  More importantly, you get insight into the Center's programs which offer those poor, who are willing to work for it, the hope and opportunity to escape their poverty and begin productive and satisfying lives.

Reflective guidance among friends, in comfortable Center surroundings, lets the group discuss what they've seen and experienced as they wind down after each busy day.

With accommodations at the Working Boys' Center's modern volunteer house, you'll travel each day in one of the Center's buses to various locations arranged to give you a real picture of the beauty of Ecuador and the well established family development mission that began in 1964.  It's an experience you won't forget!

The next Spiritual Journey is planned for February 29 - March 6, 2012.  Contact Pat Parks for more information.

View trip flyer.

View a sample itinerary of a Spiritual Journey.

For more information on scheduling a spiritual journey for your church group, please contact Sister Miguel Conway.  Additionally, Pat Parks arranges an annual Spiritual Journey to the Working Boys' Center every February.  

University, High School or Youth Group Volunteer Immersion Experience

Group volunteer experiences can range from one to two weeks long and provide participants with a glimpse into the volunteer missionary experience.  Students will participate in an orientation program, tour all Working Boys' Center locations, visit WBC member's home, participate in a "minga" or community work gang project, tour popular tourism sites in and around Quito, shadow a volunteer for a day, work on a special project in our technical education shops, and spend a day shopping at the markets of Otavalo.  All students stay at our modern volunteer house at the location of Center Number One.  Students gain valuable insight into volunteer life and develop personal relationships with families served by the WBC.  Special service projects can be developed for groups spending two weeks at the Center.

If your high school, university or youth group is interested in participating in this volunteer experience, please contact Sister Miguel Conway for additional information on available dates, program timeline and arranging a trip.

Mini Mingas

Adult and university groups can participate in a hands-on service project while visiting the Working Boys' Center.   While all groups will have ample time to tour all Working Boys' Center locations, visit member homes and see key Quito tourism attractions, groups will focus their energies on a service project helping the Center and its families.  Minga is an indigenous word for a community work group and members help construct homes for fellow WBC members every weekend through mingas.  Groups can participate in home construction minga or in-house minga.  In-house minga options include making teaching materials for the English program, helping with daycare field trips, sorting clothing donations, working in the library or painting classrooms at the Center. 

If you are interested in arranging a mini minga trip to the Working Boys' Center, please contact Sister Miguel Conway for additional information.