Education Dominican Republic Project #9836

Educate Haitian Immigrant Children in the DR

by Project Esperanza

Educate Haitian Immigrant Children in the DR

Project Report | Feb 25, 2016
Trauma Training

By Caitlin McHale & Kati Hinman | Project Overseers

We recently had the opportunity to attend a trauma training conference in Santiago, which we then gained knowledge and materials from that allowed us to do a training with our teachers. After sending staff to the training on trauma informed care for children, we have been working on implementing better discipline that is sensitive to past trauma children may have experienced. Teachers have started using behavior charts, to reward good behavior and give children a visual when their behavior is worsening, rather than immediately sending them out of the class.

We believe it will take multiple meetings and tranings with the teachers to be able to see what we hope to see in the implementation stage, but we are thankful that it has begun. While teachers wanted to vent and complain about frustrations they face, listening to the affects that trauma has on children and their behavior was helpful in encouraging them to express patience with such problematic students. a list of catch phrases such as, "Use your words" used at the pre-school level when students get frustrated were shared with the teachers as well

While we are fundraising to pay off the new school building, we are still working on getting our accreditation, so we don't need to rely on another school to enroll our students in the Dominican system. Once we have it, we might be the only Creole-Spanish language school with this targeted curriculum in the Dominican Republic!

Thank you for sticking with us and helping us make our dream of owning our own building and being a fully accredited Haitian Creole-Dominican Spanish school a reality!

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Aug 5, 2015
A Busy, Busy Summer

By Caitlin McHale | Project Overseer

1st grade

The school year ended successfully on June 15th. During the last weeks of school, we met with parents and encouraged them to register at the regularization office. Regularization is a process where immigrants register their identity, get finger printed, photoed, and then are given a receipt. They are supposed to go back and submit certain documents such as a notary act, commercial letters from registered businesses, neighborhood watch letters, background checks, and more. If they submit everything in time, they are supposed to receive a residency card from the Dominican government. This is only for people who have been in the country since 2011 or before. Many of our parents were not taking it seriously, or were waiting until the last minute, and the big threat was that anyone who did not go and register before June 17th would be deported. After that date, many people packed up their stuff and went to Haiti out of fear of being deported and losing their stuff. But until now, August 4th, there have been no deportations. However, many have received their residency cards, so that is a success!

We also took parents, teachers, and students to an office set up by the Haitian government in Santo Domingo where they were giving passports, birth certificates, and Haitian ID cards, all three for 1,000 pesos, which is around $22 US. This is a very good deal and opportunity but we were met with some corruption there with the employees working there, unfortunately. Some people got through the lines whereas others were told to return. It is a four hour bus ride.

As soon as school let out, we got to work putting up classroom divisions and doing other preparations for the next school year. This is why it has been an extremely busy summer! But the school doesn't even look like the same building now. We hired a new director and teacher training and planning started on Monday. We are looking forward to a great new school year! All of our classes will now be in the morning as we have sufficient space to hold them all. And one of our teachers has connections with a vocational school government funded who say they will start doing vocatoinal classes in the afternoons!

The new school year starts August 17th. We still have many more needs before the new school year! However, things are looking good. We hope to make this the year that all of our students are sponsored. Thank you!

2nd grade

camp

rennovations

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Feb 5, 2015
We Moved!

By Caitlin McHale | Project Overseer

group effort

On Jan. 24, our rental contract ended. The landlord sold the buliding so we were not able to renew the contract, and had to move out. He gave us the first chance to purchase and although it was a great spot for the time we spent there, it is not an ideal permanent home. We had our eyes on a building down the street.

However, this is a HUGE fundraising project. We did not have the funds raised by the time we had to move out, so we searched around for rentals. What we found were buildings of similar price to where we just left but way too small, or very nice, expensive buildings, that we could fit into, but still were too fancy for the school.

Finally, we tried again to negotiate with the owner of the property we hope to buy. We struck a deal. He has given us one year to pay off the property. We have had to give a deposit of 300,000 pesos, which is around $6,750 US. If we pay the remainder within six months, this money goes into the total sale. If we pay the remainder in one year, half of it goes to the total sale. If we fail to pay by the end of the year, the deposit serves as rent for the year. The owner could then sell the building to someone else, raise the sale price, etc. so we are in full fundraising mode!

The deal was to move in on the 24th and the landlord had promised that the building would be ready, as it was bing used as a carpentry shop and was therefore covered in lumber, machinery, and dust! Well, he didn't start moving out until we ran him down on the morning of the 24th! We worked hard on the 24th, 25th, and 26th (a Monday but a Dominican holiday, so no school) to at last completely clear out, clean, and paint the giant back room. We finished around 9PM on the 26th and received students the next morning.

We have quite a few more things to do in order to make the building functional as a school. On of the most urgent needs is to put up walls to separate large open space into classrooms, an office, and a kitchen. This is a project that will definitely keep us busy! But my how the proper classroom space will increase the quality of the education.

moving equipment

spraying the whole place down

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