Field Trips

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Today was an AWESOME day! We decided to take some of the kids on field trips. So, in the morning, along with 17 great volunteers, we took our group of older older girls up the mountain in a cable car. We all squished in the bus we rented - Dominican style, and headed to the "TeleFerico". We were able to pair each girl up with a volunteer, so everyone had some great one on one time.

We had to split up into two groups for the cable cars, but we all met up at the top and walked around together.
We walked around the top of the mountain, and despite the misty rain and slippery paths, everyone really enjoyed themselves. The girls had a blast, and most of them had never been up before.
After we dropped off our big group of volunteers, we took the girls for lunch at the provocone. We had yummy chicken, rice, fried plantanes, and french fries. The girls were super excited about the day, and when we dropped them off at the center, they all left with huge smiles on their faces.

In the afternoon, we took some of the little boys and some of the older boys to the old Fort. It is really cool there, and there are lots of places to run around, and lots of old pictures and artefacts to look at.

We paired each older boy with one younger boy, and they walked around together, and sat together on the bus. A lot of the older boys are really good with the younger ones, and helping out with them.

There are several different sections of the Fort, and we tried to keep the group together and move around together - this was a really good idea. The kids had so much fun, and they too, left with huge smiles on their faces.

Mi Descripción

This is a picture of Anamilka and Genesis, sisters who attend our Girls Club. They are holding their "mi descripción" papers that they worked hard on during the Club one afternoon. These worksheets are a great way to get the girls reading and writing in a way that seems fun to them.

Girls Club Crafts

In the picture below you can see (from left to right) some of our Divas; Alani, Yohani, Carolina, Rosemary, Anamilka, and Loraina. They are sitting in Girls Club and working on a craft, made with white rice. You can see the results of their work to the side. These girls have been coming to the Club for almost 6 months now, and they have come so far. Back in June, when the Girls Club started, we would try to organize crafts for the kids. The girls had never done anything like that before, and were so self conscious about their abilities. They were unwilling to even attempt the craft on their own; even the simple act of drawing a flower or colouring in a picture. They would want one of us standing behind them; often asking for us to do it for them or to hold the pencil with them. These pictures show how far they have come. Not only are they now able to have fun creating crafts and working independantly, but they are also able to gain self confidence in their abilities.

Painting Nails

The girls of the Girls Club love anything typically girly; especially painting their nails! Women and girls in the Dominican Republic are very conscious about the way they look, and you don't often seen them without their hair and nails done. Diane Wolff, Dove Missions's Secretary and Fundraising Director, was in Puerto Plata last week and brought with her, among other things, this nail painting kit. You put the paint in a spinner, and the machine paints the nails, which the girls loved and had a blast playing with. You can see Sindi to the left, and Brittany, below, showing off their new nails!

Educating Our Girls

“Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go to search for work in the cities… But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they’ve learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls” (Three Cups of Tea)

Busy Saturdays

Saturdays are BUSY at the Center! Throughout the day, we have Club with all of the kids! After the recent additions of some final children, we are at a grand total of 80 children that DOVE welcomes in the Clubs. For now, we are going to add just a few more kids off the wait list for waiting sponsors, and then we are going to stay at that number (around 85) as we work on raising support to grow the program to include more children; fundraising for things like rent payment, snacks for the kids, teachers, craft and educational materials, etc.

We have the kids split into five different groups by age and gender. Here are some photos! The Divas (girls aged 10-13) did not get a group photo, but there is one photo with some of them at work. The jefes (our older boys aged 14-17) also did not get a group picture, but you can check out some recent photos of them at their page.

Here are our dolphins. They are our girls aged 6-9. Top row in the top photo is: Mariely, Yani, Viviana, Camili, Meriledi, Claribel, and Heidy. Bottom row is: Lorani, Erica, Sindi, Stefany, Anamilka, Tania, Erica, Yamali, and Kathiana.



We also have divas, who are our girls aged 10-13. We didn't get a group photo on this particular Saturday, but here are some of the girls hard at work. Left to right is: Alani, Loraina, Vanessa, Patricia, and Yohani.


Here are our liones (lions). They are our boys aged 10-14. In this picture, you can see (left to right for top picture): Almondo, Franciel, Victor Manuel, Andy, Yordi, Leuri, Yeffri, Marcos, Richard, Marcos V., Eddie, Luis Manuel, and Oliver. Three of these boys (Oliver, Yordi, and Franciel) are actually in the jefe group but managed to sneak into this picture!



Here are the lobos (wolves). They are our boys aged 6-9. In this picture you can see (left to right for the top picture): Omar, Jose Antonio, Luis Daniel, Gustavo, Titi, Yoandi, Luis Gusatvo, Yesson, and Antonio.



And a group photo with all the kids (note that we did have several missing- all 80 are not in these photos).

Salon Work

One of the longer term goals for Dove is to teach the kids vocations so that as they grow older, they can support their families. These older girls are interested in working in a salon. Conveniently, there is one located right near the Center. The girls are very excited to learn how to work in a salon, as you can see from their big smiles! The girls are: Yohani, Loraina, Vanessa, Rosemary, Elizabeth, Raysa, Anamilka, Isamay, Patricia, Tatiana, Alani, Cristina, and Yaneli.

Corking

The Girls Club is working on learning a new craft; corking (in England called knitting Nancy's or knitting dolly's). This is something that Isamay and Yamali's mother, Jaritza, came to the Club with a few weeks ago (see that post HERE). They are using rollers and bobby pins to make these hair pom-pom's. Pictured with teacher Teresa are (top row) Andrieli, Yaneli, and Cristina, and (bottom row) Heidy, Camili, and Meriledi.

New Faces

As you know, every child in the Boys and Girls Club has a sponsor. The $30/month pays for their family to receive food vouchers every month. We have a long wait list of kids wanting to join the club, but we can only add kids as we gain sponsors, and additional funds to pay for their crafts, snacks, and the programs we provide in the Club. We have had some new sponsors come forward, so here are photos of some recent additions to the DOVE Vocational and Recreation Center! You can click on their names on the sidebar to learn more about them.

Patricia


Yani


Natanael


Luis Daniel


Rosi


Tania

Girls Club

Teaching the kids about cleanliness is very important. This is something that we often take for advantage, but this knowledge is not known by all the kids, and much of it is new to them. Here they are with a teacher, Teresa, learning about personal hygeine and its importance. In the second video they are just having fun with some free time- look at those smiles!

Kick Off!

Written June 20, 2009, by Melissa Bazely, who volunteered with Dove Missions for 2 months during her forth humanitarian trip to the DR.

Today was the kick off day of the new boys and girls club. We are temporarily using a school in the community run by a very sweet lady named Hilda who knows everything about everyone in the community. She was the one who recommended a lot of families for our program. Everyone that was supposed to be there today, showed up, and the attendance sheet was full! We held the boys club in the morning, and the girls club in the afternoon. Everything went SO smoothly.
For the craft, we had the kids cover their hands in paint, and then make their hand prints on construction paper. Then they decorated with sparkles, and wrote their name on the sheet. We also had them write (with our help) what they wanted to be when they grow up in English and Spanish. One of the boys, Sauri who is 14 and one of the leaders in the class wrote that he wanted to be a fisherman. We asked him why and he replied “so that I can feed all of the people in my village”.

After the craft we let the kids outside into the basketball court, and they went crazy! Running around, playing basketball; they LOVED it! At the end of the boys club, two of the older boys, who we have appointed as class leaders, one of them being Sauri, came to us and said some very kind words. Andy, who is 13, and who I have gotten to know over the past 7 weeks, said, “on behalf of everyone in this community, all of the Mothers, and all of the boys who were in this room I want to thank you all for working to help our future”.

*above photo- Hilda, Melissa, Luis Gustavo, Cathy, Adriana, Sauri, Nikki, and Andy
As soon as Liz translated this for me, my eyes welled up with tears. Andy looked at me, and I looked at him, and all I could do was give him a huge hug. This was also the same boy that said he wanted to be a pilot so that he could fly to Canada and visit us. For me, this moment made all of the paperwork we did, all of the dry preparation and application process we did for this club SO worth it.

The girls club in the afternoon we did the same craft, and we realized that girls are a lot calmer than the boys. They are so sweet, and they listen so well. Some of the girls brought containers full of cut up fruit such as pineapple, cantoloupe, and banana to share with everyone. After the craft, we played the game “What Time is it Mr. Wolf”? They had a lot of fun with that, and then of course, they wanted a huge 25 person game of “Stella Ella Hola”. It took a really long time to finally get a winner, but the girls had a great time.
Overall, we had an amazing day. I have no other effective words to describe it.