The United Brothers School of Munoz

We have some very exciting new partnerships budding! One is not as new as the other.

The first is The Center for Research and Education run by Martine Michel-toure in New York City. She has sent food items to help with school meals. We are finally able to provide a daily breakfast to our little ones!

The other new partnership is with Sewing My Future, run by Julie Baker in New Hampshire. Julie has already worked with seamstresses in the Munoz community and is partnering with us with our fair trade art shop and school, which both are in the same building. She came in October and set up one of our artists with an embroidering job, sewing and embroidering baby booties. The plan is to employ this woman to teach girls and women in the community to sew, and those who are able to reach a certain level will be able to find employment through the art shop and Sewing My Future, as Julie has a growing clientele base and lots of experience.

I mentioned in the last update that we now have less students due to the public school opening full day and providing meals to students. So we are heading in the direction of providing more vocational training and this is a start!

The cacao project is still in the works. A donation of $60 can provide a family with a cacao tree in a new community garden/sustainability center we are working to set up in a spot centered between two of the bateyes. After 4 years, this tree should be able to provide between $80 and $140 US for the family each year through the sale of seeds!

Thank you always for your support!

Links:

• Organization website
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This summer was a great time for our students! We bussed them over to our other school each morning, provided them with breakfast, and had English immersion camp. This is the first year that we were able to include students from Munoz and it was a huge success! After week 5 of camp, we even chose the best behaved campers with the most consistent attendance and went on a trip to the national zoo in Santo Domingo! Here is a link to some videos from each week of camp: 

After camp, we had a great week of teacher training. Topics included strength based teaching, team building exercises, discussion on the Spanish/Creole/French language issues, discovery based teaching, and more! 

School began Aug. 16th. As predicted, we have only pre-school students so far. Over the years, most of our students have integrated into the public school system, which is great! This year the school has switched from half a day to full day, so we have lost students to the school. We still believe in the bilingual curriculum we use and in instilling volunteerism and social responsibility into our students, building them up to be change-makers on the island, but since we are not yet an accredited school, if they have the opportunity to go to public school, that is where they should be. However, hopefully we will be accredited by the time our pre-schoolers advance to 1st grade, and that is in the works. 

We have several students who still need sponsors. Please consider donating $100 and we will send you a profile and updates. 

We also have a new project in the works. This summer, we began growing cacao seedlings. Our hope is to, with the participation of sponsors and donors, purchase 3 sq. m of land per tree, and be able to give at least one tree to each student. In 5 or 6 years, these trees will produce around 200 pods a year, each full of seeds that will be turned into chocolate. 100 lbs. of seeds can be purchased in town, to be exported for around $150 US (6,000 RD). So more on that to come! 

Thank you, always, for your support!

Links:

• homepage
• Like us on Facebook!