Welcome to 2010!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

In the morning today, the puppetry teacher (Christiane Saad) was in working with the older boys and girls, and the younger kids worked with two of our teachers, Damaris and Terry, who are both really great with young kids. In the afternoon, we had our new music teacher, Tadeu De Marco in working with the older kids as well. Since our puppet and music programs are brand new, here is a brief description:

The music program is being run by a Brazilian man, Tadeu De Marco, who has worked with the age group of kids we have many times over, and created some awesome music. He starts with putting the band together - 10 singers, 10 dancers, and 15 musicians. Since we have more kids than that in the club, he did auditions - and this is what he spent hours doing on Saturday at the club. Next, Tadeu will teach the kids how to make the instruments out of bamboo, higuero (this is what maracas are made of), milk cans, PVC tube, and bicycle tire inner tubes.
And then of course, he will teach them the actual music, and by the end the children will be ready by then to show off their talents at a few local hotels. The CD produced will be sold to visitors to help the families of our kids.
This program will take 6 months - which will take the kids right into the summer. They are super excited about it, and we learned through the auditions that the kids you least expect seem to have the most talent.

The puppetry program is more than most might think - the kids are being taught by the teacher, Christiane Saad, how to make these puppets out of paper mache and recycled materials. They will write their own plays, and create their own shows. This program is GREAT for the kids, and they will really have the chance to showcase their creativity.

Overall, today was an amazing day. It was a really big day for the kids and everyone is super excited for the upcoming year and all of these great opportunities.

Music Program

We are definitely going to go ahead with the music program. We have arranged a music teacher from Brazil that has been living here for years. Tadeu will spend the first 2 months constructing instruments from recycled materials, milk cans, PVC tube, water jugs, bamboo, etc. he will help the older boys do this, the next 4 months he will be teaching the boys and some of the bigger kids to play in a band, some will play, some will sing, and some will dance. They will be writing their own songs, and their own music. At the end they will be producing a CD, the music will be that good.

We are starting this music program because music is an important part of these children's lives and they light up dancing and singing when they hear music playing. The program design would include the teacher, instruments, all construction, tools, and buses to hotels to play. It is top of the line instruction at a hefty price of $600.00 a month for a 6 month program. We have others interested in donating, and once we receive enough donations to cover the whole program we will begin.

The children are so excited, and with the recording of the CD, all our sponsors will have an opportunity to hear their donation in action!


This is the main project we are working on fundaising for right now. If you are interested in donating, please click on the paypal button on the right sidebar. In the box, note that it is for the music program. Thank you so much!

Art Contest

We finally announced the winners of the Art Bench contest! The older boys painted the wooden art benches that they had previously made in wood shop. And the winners were; Alberto 1st place, Eddie 2nd place, and Andy 3rd place. The girls club picked the winners. 1st prize was 500 pesos, 2nd was 250 pesos, 3rd was 150 pesos all coming off the balance of their bike loans. Each child that participated and painted a bench all received 50 pesos off the balance of their bike loans for trying.

Alberto, first place


Eddie, second place


Andy, third place

Music & The Arts

This Sunday, Cathy and her daughter Ally returned back to the DR after a 2 month vacation in Canada! Cathy is the Club Director, and everyone was happy to have her back. To celebrate, the kids put on performances and the parents all came to watch. They did an incredible job! Music is very important in the Dominican Republic and this showed in what they chose to perform. Both boys' groups did a rap, and the girls did a dance to a rap song. Another group of boys put on a skit about gangs and violence and the impact it has on families and communities. The kids really, really enjoyed taking part in this special day, and we hope to expand the Music & Arts Program soon to encourage more of this.


And if you are interested in hearing some music that is popular in the Dominican Republic, search Youtube for El Sol Y La Playa by Monkey Black, or Que Tengo Que Hacer by Daddy Yankee.