Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Dominican Republic 09-07

Last week's trip to the Dominican Republic...

I was fortunate enough to be traveling with FFP's Project Manager for the DR. We traveled to see some of our current project sites including some incredible efforts along the Haitian-Dominican border. There are these tiny little forgotten communities of people struggling to survive along this no-man's-land. The mountains are the only thing embracing these suffering families.

Food For The Poor is completely changing the face of these villages. The initial facelift comes from buildling brand new concrete block homes for each of the families. Their shacks of sticks, mud, rotten wood, and scrap metal are being replaced with brightly-painted, sturdy, large, cement block homes. A large multi-purpose community center is nearly finished, along with a community school.






But this project is not just a face-lift... a communal chicken coop is nearly finished, and plans for further animal husbandry and agriculture are the next step for this revitalized community. The men and women of the village are being employed to construct their own homes and those of their neighbors.

Their is a spark of life and most importantly hope that can be seen in the faces of the villagers. I felt truly blessed to have been able to take part and see it with my own eyes. I look forward to seeing the finished projects.

After traveling the countryside I returned to Santo Domingo to spend time with the children's homes that we support through our Angels of Hope program.




We harvested tomatos, peppers, and plantains of a seperate FFP agricultural project and delivered large boxes of them to each of the six of our Angel of Hope sponsored homes.








The children are all back in school now and it was truly a joy to see them rolling into the homes with their school uniforms on... buzzing about what happened at school and who has a crush on who.


For most of these children it is an advantage that they have been placed in one of these homes. The majority of them are not orphans in the "orphan Annie" sense. They do have living parents or relatives, but unfortunately the parents are so poor that they are unable to provide and care for these children. Outside of the homes the children suffer from malnourishment and do not have the opportunity for an education. On the contrary, once these kids are brought to the homes they are nourished not only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. They are often provided with the opportunity for vocational/skills training in a specific job field or scholarships for college tuition.