Happy Birthday!

Hola!

It's been such an exciting weekend! On Saturday one of our kids from the Ventura family, the biggest family supported by the club, had a birthday! The Ventura household is home to Lola, the grandmother, and her 16 grandchildren. It's quite the fun place to be around! Lola loves having us come and visit so Jenny and Jencen bought ice cream for the children and came back to celebrate Leuri's birthday. They were so excited!

All the kids gathered around to get some of the "goods" and were so excited when we pulled out spoons and told them we had enough to go around! Lola went into the kitchen to get bowls and plates and the kids waited so patiently for Lueri to get his cup full of ice cream first, and then they started digging in right along with him! They loved the treat!



Everyone was so excited to be able to celebrate together and make that day so special for Leuri. Happy birthday, buddy!

An exciting week!

This week at the club has been so exciting and full of all sorts of activities! Jenny and Jencen are still hitting the English classes hard daily and the kids are learning so much! Yesterday it was learning about the titles of family members and then going around the class asking each other if they "had a mother? a brother? a husband? a girlfriend?" It was great!

We've also been working really hard on both the jewelry and the sewing classes so the girls can learn the trade (of both!), learn to produce whatever it is they are working on, learn to market and mass produce the product, and then turn to sell it in their neighborhoods, downtown, around the barrios, all over town. We're hoping to provide them with the tools and the know-how through vocational training to be successful in the future. And it's really taking off!

Here the girls are working on their sewing and jewelry projects. They love doing them!






While the girls are hard at work learning their new skills, the boys are working so hard on their health and fitness class! Jencen has been doing such a great job working with them and on Saturday he worked with the younger boys, teaching them to do push-ups and sit-ups. They were having such a great time! It was so great to see them loving working with Jencen so much, they were sad when he told them class was over!





We've had a great day this week at the club! We're so excited for the rest of the summer!

English Class!

Hola!

Today was a great day in the club! Jenny and Jencen taught English Class to the kids and they were so excited to continue on with what they've been learning this week. 14 kids were there for class and they were all so eager to keep learning!

They started the class with going over basic pronouns in Spanish and then translating them to English for the kids. Then they taught them "ser" (to be) and "tener" (to have) and then adjectives to accompany them. This way the kids could form basic phrases in English like "I am hungry or I am tired, even I am thirsty." After learning all of their terms the kids were able to describe themselves, the students around them and even Jenny and Jencen. They were so concentrated on learning the new terms! They were even taking notes throughout class so that they could take them home and work on their skills outside of club time!



After learning the new concepts, Jencen would go around the group and ask individual kids to answer questions about how he was "feeling" based on the actions he was making. It was hilarious! And the kids were so excited to participate. They were eagerly raising their hands, almost fighting even over who got to answer the question. It was so exciting to see them so pumped up!



The kids enjoyed the class so much that they weren't ready for it to end when class was over. They requested that Jenny, Jencen and the rest of the volunteers stay later than normal just to play. Of course we obliged! We went over to the sports field a few streets over and played every form of ball possible. Such a great afternoon!

We're gearing up for a big Saturday and getting ready for the rest of the summer!

Only 8 More Sponsors Needed!

Wonderful news!
To all of you who have been waiting to sponsor a child, our family sponsorship program has expanded to include individual child sponsorship! This ensures the voucher program, school uniforms and cost of participating in the club to all of the children in our club! If you would like to participate, please email our coordinator, Melissa Bazely at mbazely@sympatico.ca and let her know. We only have 8 children who still need sponsors, once we get that we will have every child in our club accounted for! Here is the list of children waiting for sponsorship; check out their pages for information photos!

Thank you,

Liz McKie
Executive Director and Founder - Dove Missions

Children in need of a sponsor:

Antonio
Emilio
Kathiana
Loraini

A New Class!

Hello Friends!

We are so excited to have started the summer and our new schedule off with a bang!

We've already had so many great things going on around the club this summer and we're only 3 weeks into the summer! We've had volunteers from all over, all sorts of new classes introduced, great opportunities for the kids to get involved in, and lots of fun!

This past week we welcomed two volunteers back from Canada, Jenny and Jencen, who will be with us for a month and the kids couldn't have been happier to see them. Jencen is going to be working with James on the health and nutrition class and the 2 of them together will be running the English class for the kids 4 days a week. Everyone was so happy to see them!

Yesterday Jencen introduced the kids to one of our newest classes, yoga and dancing split throughout the week. Yesterday we started the class with the introduction to yoga! They were very curious at first, but took to it very quickly!

He started by getting them to stretch and showed them different ways their bodies need to be warmed up before being able to go into the positions safely. They asked questions and were so curious about what he was doing as he moved from one stretch into another.

He taught them different yoga positions and what they were stretching and working out in each individual position. They thought it was so funny to see Jencen contorting his body into the more complicated positions - they were having so much fun with him!

Overall, yesterday was a great day at the club and the kids can't wait for the yoga/dancing course to continue!

Mother's Day Preparation

Today was a long and wonderful day. Saturday’s are always days everyone looks forward to because at some point during the day all of the kids come to the center. They rotate in throughout the day, group by group, all just as happy to be there. Next weekend is Dominican Mother’s Day, so today was centered around that. The kids started making beautiful gifts for their Mother’s. They are so imaginative and creative! The kids were also practicing for the Mother’s Day play they are going to put on next Saturday. During the lunch period, two of the teachers stayed at the center to sort out some donations and put together Mother’s Day packages.

Each Mother is getting some sheets or towels and toiletries. Sheets and towels are a huge necessity; often times each household has only one towel to use for everything. By the time lunchtime was over, the teachers had everything sorted out; all that was left to do was wrap and decorate the gifts. So along with some of the girls and teachers, our volunteers spent the afternoon doing so.

As well, at the end of the day Ernestina gave away some clothing donations. She gave them to the older boys, and they really loved them; a lot of the clothing was jersey material, and that is VERY popular down here.


Overall, today was a busy and amazing day at the center.

What's New with DOVE?

It had been a while since we have last posted anything, but DOVE Missions has been extremely busy with changes and activities at the center.
As the kids have been wrapping up the music program, due to end in June, we have decided that since it has had such an amazing impact on them that we should extend it. We have hired a new music teacher to take over the classes and he is amazing! The puppet program has come to an end, and the kids are so proud of their work. The puppets are in the club, and they look amazing.
DOVE has hired a new director for the club, and her name is Ernestina. She is an amazing Dominican woman with a lot of drive and passion for the work DOVE Missions is doing. She has taken over smoothly, and working on new programming. We are hoping to have the center open every day during the summer for a fun place for the kids to stay out of trouble.
We are running a new program for the older boys, and have even added a few new members to the older boys group. The new program is a nutrition/fitness/weight class right now and will eventually progress into a careers type class. The boys will begin to learn how to apply for jobs, how to get jobs, connections to help with an apprenticeship program, and teach the boys discipline. It will teach them to discipline themselves; their minds, their bodies, their lifestyle. They will learn how important it is to have a job and keep it. It will be an esteem building program and it will give the boys the opportunity for more in their lives. This is a program that will allow the younger kids to graduate into, and we are currently working on developing a program for our older girls. The program is currently run by James, a man from Haiti whom the boys really respect. It is important for them to have a consistent male figure in their life, and James is the perfect fit for this program.
This summer is going to be amazing, with many volunteers coming to visit. The kids love when volunteers come; they love the attention and fun activities that our volunteers are so amazing at planning. We have volunteers coming from all over the States, as well as from Canada.
A goal for DOVE this summer is to figure out exactly what our calling is in Haiti. There are so many opportunities in Haiti and DOVE plans to be there in some way. Right now we are working with and supporting two orphanages while continuing our efforts to find where we are supposed to be in Haiti.
Stay tuned for some more frequent updates!