Dominican Republic

Finally, here is the recap of my already not-so-recent trip to the Dominican Republic. It was an eye-opening trip, and unfortunately the pictures cannot capture all the impressions from that week.

Purpose of the trip
The reason I decided to spend a week in the sunny DR (besides escaping the January DC cold) was to work with a group of Dominican women organized into a coop through a Christian development organization Mission Emanuel that works in 2 peri-urban communities near Santo Domingo. This organization aims to improve the lives in these communities by providing several good schools, a health clinic, and various income-generating sources such as a water-processing plant and the women's coop. The way most things get done are through various church teams that come from the US throughout the year to work in various capacities and projects. As a former development student, I was very impressed with how this organization functions, how wisely they approach any new ventures, and how much they have been able to achieve with so little. They even work with a Haitian community by supporting a Haitian school and supporting a local Haitian church---this is especially admirable because Haitian refugees are despised and looked down upon in the Dominican society; they constitute the poorest layer of the society and are not given any social services

The women


The children


The beautiful surroundings