The United Brothers School of Munoz

We finally got the gate fixed at the entrance to the school from the road! It had been an issue for quite awhile now. It is an iron sliding gate. It is the landlord's responsibility to fix but he had not fixed it. We asked if we could fix it and deduct the money from the rent and he said that he would fix it. This went back and forth for months, and actually years. We built a wooden gate inside of the iron gate at one point but it lasted just a few years. He demanded us to not fix the iron gate, saying we would get ripped off, and kept saying he was coming to fix it that weekend or that month. Finally, this past month, we did not pay rent until it was fixed. Although he did not come, he had his man in charge fix it.

So now we can lock the kids in during school! :) We have no doorman so with the teachers being busy teaching, if one wanders off, they have to either leave the class to get the child, or let the child go. We also have no shutting classrooms so that makes classroom management a bit more challenging. We have two normal sized classrooms, one small class that takes place in a very small room, and one class that meets outside under a roof. So this is why kids running off is a problem at times. Hopefully one day we'll have our own building, but up until now we have been renting.

Christmas break is just around the corner. We have many donated clothes, shoes, school supplies, and more we plan on distributing to our students, parents, and teachers through a "little store". They have earned points through attedance and now can redeem them at the "little store".

The Dominican Republic has a 13th month law which means that in December, employers have to provide a Christmas bonus to employees which is an additional month's pay. So we have been trying to save up to provide that but it never is easy! Although we pay between the 1st and 5th of each month for the previous month, in December, employees expect their pay before the 24th and it has to be two months. So it's a challenge! But it helps them to have a nice Christmas.

Thank you so much for your support!

Links:

• Like us on Facebook!
• organization home page

We had a great summer here in Munoz! We had four volunteers who were here the entire summer, as well as several others who came and went. They have now all left and we hope they can return again one day!

The summer was great, but there were some great challenges for the community as well. In June, a fire broke out in one of the three bateyes and burnt 34 houses to the ground. We were able to distribute many donations our wonderful supporters and volunteers gave to help out families in this time of extra need. The government has shared plans to rebuild but nothing has commenced yet. In conjunction with Sewing My Future run by Julie Baker, we received a donation from the ... foundation to make school uniforms for the fire victims and are working on that currently. 

This summer was a bit of a crazy time for all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, as there was something going on by the Ministry of Interior Policy and Foreign Affairs called Regularization. June 17th marked the deadline where people without proper documentation were able to register their identity, and then given 45 more days to submit certain required documents such as a background check, commercial reference letters, notary acts, etc. Those who did this were to receive a residency card, and those who did not were to be deported. We were able to reserve some spots for community members during the last few days as many put it off to the last minute and were standing in line and sleeping outside of the office for days, trying to get a chance to register.

This summer, one volunteer, Kiki, especially immersed herself and engaged with the Munoz community. In her free time after camp, she took kids to the beach, led them in recycling activities, and just shared her time with them, getting to know them and their families. 

Ashley and Kayla led a dance class two days a week for the girls. Ballet, tap, and jazz is actually a foreign form of dance where the norm in the batey is provocative dirty dancing tied to the high percentage of involvement in prostitution. They even rounded up donated tap shoes. 

We ran two weeks of English immersion camp during the month of July. Simultaneously we ran a five week camp in the other community where we work called Padre Granero. AB conducted research on the success and methodology of the camp. You can view stats from her research on the camp program's blog in the very near future. 

We also had a visit from the Berryville Baptist Rascals who put on an awesome puppet show one Friday morning! The kids and community members thoroughly enjoyed it!

We also had a sad loss this summer. Jimmy, one of our artists and a skilled electrician who had just done some work for us in the school in Padre Granero passed away in a motorcycle accident in July. His wife Miranda is also an active artist in the shop. They have two children ages 5 and 3. If you would like to support his wife as she really needs it during this time, please consider purchasing one of her bracelets. 

One last bit of news is that the cacao project is developing a bit! The Northeastern University students who joined us over Spring Break have done some fundraising toward the project and plan to come back during Spring Break 2016 to get started planting some seedlings! 

School began on August 17th. We had a great two weeks of teacher training before the start of school. We are happy to welcome Joseph Justine as our new director. 

Stay tuned for more updates to come!

Links:

• Blog about Munoz
• Our organization's home page
• Like us on Facebook!