AMIGOS partners with Children International and will soon be announcing a second partnership for this project. Our partners directly involve AMIGOS Volunteers and Project Staff in their ongoing service learning and children's rights awareness campaigns.
Our work in the northern Dominican Republic
AMIGOS Project Staff and Volunteers work with local youth and community members to carry out the following activities:
I. Community Service
- Community-Based Initiative Process (CBIP): Volunteers collaborate with their host community in the implementation of a community-specific project. (e.g. developing a sports equipment rental bank, improving a recreational sports area, or forming an after school tutoring system).
- Extracurricular Activities: Together with local youth, Volunteers will plan and lead games and envinronmentally themed activities for children ages anywhwere from 5-12. Themes to be announced.
II. Intercultural Exchange
- Living with a host family: Volunteers will have the opportunity to be immersed in Dominican culture by living with a host family. AMIGOS prefers that each Volunteer is assigned to their own host family, however, occasionally two Volunteers are placed with the same host family. Volunteers are expected to act as part of the family, helping out with chores and taking part in day to day activities. Volunteers will learn about the local culture, while also providing host families with insight into their own habits, ways of being in the world, and lives back home.
- Eating local food: Although eating arrangements vary from one community to another, a common strategy is for Volunteers to have a rotating meal plan, in which they eat with different families in the community.
III. Youth Engagement
- Domestic Volunteers: This project will have Dominican youth serving as AMIGOS volunteers alongside US-based Volunteers. They are trained before US-based Volunteers arrive and will be participating in a community outside their home province.
- Local Volunteers: Prior to Volunteer arrival, local youth will be trained by AMIGOS project staff on the basic program structure and planning and facilitation skills and will participate in AMIGOS programs in their own communities.
- Forming youth groups: Volunteers are encouraged to be creative and form youth groups in their communities (i.e. afterschool girls group, reading club, ect.) when possible. This will provide local youth with a structure within which to continue activities started throughout the summer and ensure sustainability of summer initiatives.
About our Partners
Children International is a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the lives of impoverished children, their families, and their communities. Children has been working in the Dominican Republic since 1979, focusing on health, education, life skills, and youth and community leadership. Their programs currently benefit 31,936 children in Santo Domingo, Bayaguana, Santiago, and Mao, Valverde. AMIGOS is collaborating with Children in several communities in Santiago and Mao this summer, promoting volunteerism, youth leadership, health, and environmental awareness.
FURTHER ACTIONS
Involving youth from across the Americas
Read about our Partner Agencies
