Home > Volunteer Overseas with UNION > Dominican Republic Trip

Dominican Republic Trip

August 4 - 26, 2012

HOPE International Development Agency has been working with local partners in the Dominican Republic since 1980. The diverse work there, ranging from healthcare, to sustainable agriculture, to conservation and management of natural resources (forests, soil, and watersheds), to education, has been helping to transform the lives of thousands of families and communities in need.

The UNION team will travel to the Dominican Republic, to share in the life of a rural community in the municipality of San Jose de Ocoa, where HOPE International Development Agency primarily works. The team will fly to Santo Domingo, where they will be met by our staff and brought to the small city of San Jose de Ocoa for an orientation at our staff headquarters.

The team will travel to a remote community located in the mountainous greater San Jose de Ocoa region. During their time in the rural community, volunteers will live together as a team alongside local families whose livelihoods are largely subsistence farming on steeply sloped land.

The team will work together on a reforestration project to help restore the degraded mountainsides, or a construction project in the host village: much-needed shelters or a greenhouse for innovative agriculture. Volunteers will learn about critical environmental issues and effective low-impact technologies (like the greenhouses) that enable villagers in regions of cooler temperatures to increase vegetable production and provide more food for their families. Volunteers who are interested in healthcare may have the opportunity to visit with doctors and patients in the local hospital in Ocoa and rural clinics to learn about the unique challenges and opportunities of delivering healthcare in rural areas.  The team will have a mid-way weekend break to spend in San Jose de Ocoa for shopping and internet use.

On the way home, the team will have one day to explore in the capital city of Santo Domingo, a historical colonial city which has become a bustling and vibrant metropolis on the Caribbean Sea.

Through friendships and a genuine experience of life in the Dominican Republic, UNION team members will get a better idea of the needs of the poor, and how they can partner with the world’s poor to make a difference.

Profiles of members of the Dominican Republic Team 2012

_{Mark Till}

Help a team member raise funds for the project in the Dominican Republic

We will be happy to send you more information and talk with you personally to tell you more and answer any questions about this exciting, life-changing program.