A School for the Displaced

Estefanía Rebellón is helping provide an education to children living in migrant camps

- Diane Peters

IN A MIGRANT camp in Tijuana, Mexico, packed with hundreds of people, a three-year-old girl wandered alone toward the exit. She was steps from a busy road and a crowded market.

Estefanía Rebellón seemed to be the only person who noticed her. The actor, producer and writer had just made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Los Angeles with a group of friends to drop off food, clothing and hygiene kits to a relief organization.

It was December 2018, a time when the United States-Mexico border was seeing a surge of migrants from Central America escaping violence and poverty. Rebellón could not believe what she saw: families lacking even the most basic supplies. The children, sometimes shoeless and often dirty, clearly had no place to go.

Rebellón dashed over to the child and took her hand. "Where are you going? Where are your parents?" she asked. Eventually, she and her friends found the girl's panicked father, who had stepped away to line up for food.