» Angelina and Cristobal Colon
» Monte Plata Province
 The Dominican Foundation and IDDI are dedicated to improving access to primary school education and literacy in the rural communities of the Dominican Republic. Our partners IDDI are dedicated to increasing the quality and access to education for the children throughout the Dominican Republic. Currently, there are numerous projects; however, two areas of focus are in the rural communities surrounding the sugar mills of Angelina and Cristóbal Colon, and the Monte Plata Province.
The goal is to reduce the educational disparities in these children, avoid dropouts that will include teacher and family participation to integrate the community in the teaching process.
Specifically, the main goals are:
- The educational reinforcement of the children
- Educating the parents, concentrating in literacy
- Teach the importance of education as a resource to get out of poverty
- Strengthen the volunteer promoter network that resides in the impacted area
- Providing the educators additional skills to elevate their educational levels
- Create groups that seek out the future teaches of the area, providing them support
Angelina and Cristobal Colon
The project focuses on seven rural communities surrounding the sugar mills of Angelina and Cristóbal Colon: Ingenio Angelina, Batey La Laura, Cañada del Negro, Ingenio Cristóbal Colón, Batey Contador, Batey Copellito and Batey Dos Hermanos.
Description:
 The goal of the project is geared towards the people surrounding the sugar mills Angelina, and Cristóbal Colon, in the province of San Pedro de Macorís, totaling 3,890 people.
Most of the population in the sugar cane area are Dominican-Haitian, which means born in the Dominican Republic with Haitian ancestry. A significant number of Haitians, born in Haiti, and Dominicans descendants lived in this area before the sugar mills were installed.
The main economic activity in the area is the sugar cane; other main activities are cement and free zone industries. Those that are not linked to these jobs do odd jobs or sell anything they can.
According to the study "Focalización de la Pobreza en la República Dominicana" or "Poverty in Focus in the Dominican Republic," (ONAPLAN, July 2003), the province of San Pedro de Macorís, 59.5% of the houses are in poverty conditions. The poverty in these rural communities reaches up to 88.7% of the population.
Other characteristics of this population are:
- 86% are less than 25 years old;
- The head of the household is usually a man
- The education level is minimal
- Women are in most part, unemployed and have low technical knowledge
Problem or necessity that will be broached:
According a diagnostic done for the Vicini group in September of 2004, the main problems in the rural education are:
- Only 36% of the teachers have a college degree
- Absentees and dropouts are not seen as a problem
- The incentive to go to school is for the breakfast
- The parents send the children to tend other tasks such as burn carbon, tending cows, and cutting sugar canes during school hours.
- The cost of high school is too high, located in San Pedro de Macorís
- The immigration toward the Santo Domingo and Haiti increase the dropouts
- The education quality is at a very low level
- The population of minors, 61.4% have at least one year of primary school or are currently studying.
- 32% of the parent do no have any level of instruction
- There is a strong lack of educational resources, equipments, technology and furniture for the schools.
- There is minimal participation from the parents in the teaching process
- Most of the people interviewed did not receive any skill courses, and the ones that did stated that it was not enough so they could assert themselves within the market to earn a living.
- The courses most frequently given are: electricity, bakery, sowing, etc.
Transfer Procedure
IDDI's goals in its interventions consist of transferring responsibilities and capacities to the organizations and community leaders to reach the appropriation of the development process.
In this sense the transfer of knowledge permits the community to assume the activities of the project once it has concluded. Also it is foreseen the transfer of concrete responsibilities to the ones involved that go from the organized work to the evaluated ones.
The capacity of the local NGO in front of other private instances and governmental is considered within the transfer procedure, including the relation level with the public and governmental instances, during the agreement and project development together between: organizations-IDDI and institutions that guarantee the continuity of the actions.
| Benefactor: |
Mainly children |
| Total Benefactors: |
3,890 people, where 674 children will benefit directly. |
| Cost of total project: |
US $250,000 |
Monte Plata Province
The Dominican Foundation and IDDI's goal is to improving the educational attention for children between the ages 3 to 5 years of the poor rural communities of Mata Santiago de Mena, Sierra del Agua, Comatillo and Platanal, in the Bayaguana municipal, Monte Plata province.
Brief Description:
The project wants to improve the integral development of the children from the Monte Plata province through improving the quality and access to education for children between the ages 3 and 5 from the rural communities of Mata Santiago de Mena, Sierra del Agua, Comatillo and El Platanal, in the Bayaguana municipal, a province in Monte Plata. The goal is to develop educational activities that stimulate the integral development of these children and involve their parents and relatives participation.
The project will concentrate on:
- Strengthening the community organizations
- Develop activities to stimulate the integral development of the children between ages 3 and 5
- Training the community promoters and teachers
- Reconstruction and equipping 4 classrooms
The undeniable limitations en the coverage and quality of the existing Initial Education in the rural communities has had a negative impact in the integral development of the children that reside in that area. These ages (3-5 years old) are a vital stage inside the human development, where they acquire a series of values, knowledge and physical skills that, without a doubt, contribute to the person will be the rest of their lives
An important percentage of the classrooms dedicated to this level are not adapted to the required conditions to offer and adequate education, present serious structural problems in the construction and furniture, or they are spaces shared with other levels in different sections which causes the few games, laminations, and educational material that they have, sometimes be used without permission by the older children, that share the classroom in another session.
The particular cases of the rural communities of Comatillo, Mata Santiago de Mena, El Platanal and Sierra de Agua, objects of the present proposals and that between all of them reach to a population of 5,490, are horrible. The first three do not dispose of enough dedicated space the educational attention for children ages between 3 and 5, even with the great demand and the existence of a space, in each of the three school centers (one per community) that exists. Including, in the Platanal, where around 215 habitants live, 20 of them are between the age of 3 and 5, a classroom was constructed 3 years ago specifically for the Initial Education, but is still not functioning as such. As for Sierre de Agua, a space is there with a pre-kinder class in the morning but no session in the afternoon.
The primary causes of these absences in the schools are state of poverty these families are in also the teachers, the scarcity or no education at all from the parents and the little importance that is put in this instruction because they don't know the importance of it.
The main problems that will be broached with the present project are:
- Children of ages 3 to 5 that do not have the chance for an education due to lack of classrooms and/or space dedicated to this level of teaching
- Classrooms that are not adapted or have structural problems to receive the students
- Shared classrooms, in different sessions, with students from other levels
- Scarce security in the classrooms. Problems with the doors and windows which makes them more vulnerable to robbery
- Deficient space and in some cases in difficult physical conditions
- Greater training is needed in the subjects the teachers are teaching
- Scarcity and absence of educational material
- Lack of preparation from the teachers to attend to the children with special needs
- Scarce understanding and support from the parents of the activities the teachers do in their classrooms and homework they assign the children to do at home
- Weak work link between the community and the school centers
| Benefactors: |
Children ages between 3 and 5 |
| Nº Total of Benefactors: |
1254 people (514 are children ages 3-5 yrs) |
| Total cost of the project: |
US$150,000 |
If you would like to know about other primary education and literacy projects the Dominican Foundation, and its partners IDDI, are involved in, please contact us at info@dominicanfoundation.org.
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