Yspaniola provides full-ride university scholarships and leadership training to talented students from impoverished batey communities of Haitians and Dominicans in the Dominican Republic. These scholarships empower students to become professionals and community leaders, allowing them to use their acquired knowledge and skills to bring their families and communities out of poverty.
Bateys are rural communities that originally developed around migrant agricultural labor in the Dominican Republic. They remain some of the most impoverished communities in the country, with lack of access to basic necessities such as running water, electricity, health care, and education. Many residents of Haitian descent continue to face discrimination with respect to documentation, jobs, and access to social supports.
Our project will support batey communities by empowering young community leaders through higher education, with post-graduation incentives for scholars to continue to work at least part-time in their home communities.
The project sponsors a limited number of scholarships, yet the long-term impact will reach several hundred residents as scholars are integrated into their communities as leaders for community change.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
