Centro Bonilla | Financial Aid Program

Centro Bonilla has continued to support our community members who receive our services through the financial aid program. We also have continued our individual partnerships with the licensed therapists in the Dominican Republic who offer one on one psychotherapy sessions. Centro Bonilla has had multiple group sessions that consisted of expressive arts therapy, yoga, sound therapy and more, that were offered at no cost for our communities. The women in our communities have been open and consented to expressing their gratitude by recording a short video, which we have posted on our social media platforms. One women expressed her gratitude to the Centro Bonilla communtiy because it has allowed her to learn more on how to better care for her mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health and how to also hold space and care for her family's overall mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

We are currently planning a one day holistic retreat for the members of the Centro Bonilla community, which will take place in the mountains near the rivers at a villa. Our goal with the retreat is to create a space where we will continue conversations on mental health and offer group sessions such as yoga, and a sound bath. We are currently in the planning process, and our community is very excited and looking forward to it. We are very grateful for the continuous support from our communities and being a part of making a change in Bonao.

Currently the population that we have been serving are women and a lot of the women that we serve have experienced abuse and/or other traumas. We do make it clear to the communities that our services are for everyone, and we have had men and children attend our group sessions for yoga and sound baths as well as our community gatherings/events. We have had many accomplishments during this past year: Centro Bonilla created a partnership with another organization named Aquelarre, colectiva antirracista, in Bonao, Dominican Republic, where Centro Bonilla offers its services to the members of the organization. Another accomplishment is that Centro Bonilla created a partnership with three clinical mental health therapists that offer their psychotherapy services under the financial aid program at Centro Bonilla. We have begun to focus on meeting the physical needs of our communities  through donations, and this is a new program within the organization. It became clear to us that as human beings we are not able to focus on our mental and emotional health when we need to provide basic needs for ourselves and our family. Our last accomplishment for the year of 2024 is that one of our goals was to create a community within Centro Bonilla with the communities that we work with and for. We have a beautiful community where members from these community have volunteered to help with community gatherings. We hope to continue accomplishing many more goals.

A story about one of the woman that we have been working with:

There is a woman that is a part of the Centro Bonilla community from Jayaco, Monseñour Nouel, Bonao who is a volunteer. She has shared her story about her grandaughter and her struggle with depression, and how she is her grandaughter primary caregiver due to her daughter not being able to care for her due to her mental wellbeing. She has expressed gratitude to the community of Centro Bonilla for supporting her and seeking help for her grandaughter through the financial aid program and how she has been able to witness improvement in her grandaughter's mental health. 

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