Project Esperanza has been working in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic for a little over five years now. Our programs have really come a long way and I am proud and joyful to say that we have a strong team and family. However, getting to this point has not been easy. We have literally overcome one challenge after another. This past year, there has been a certain type of challenge we have faced on a few different occasions.
This problem has been a problem of what I like to call school wreckers (in reference to individuals that have attempted to break up our schools) or team wreckers (in reference to those who have attempted to break up our soccer team). Once these attacks have been overcome, we can be flattered by them and realize that we must have a good thing going on if people want to steal it. But more than feeling flattered, I feel protective and angry at those who have meddled uninvited and attempted to create division.
Learning the Hokey Pokey in Padre Granero, 2010
To them I say: Get a life. There is enough need to go around. Rather than attempting to overtake one of our programs, go to an underserved area. But perhaps these school wreckers and team wreckers lack the skills and dedication it takes to begin a program to begin with, which is why they are trying to steal ours. Well, not on my watch!
I’ll explain one of these attacks to give an example of the type of thing I’m referring to. Regretfully, division recently occurred in a school we have supported since 2007. We included the school into our grassroots schools program after the two co-founders continuously solicited aid from us. Since then, we have paid teachers’ salaries, provided organizational support such as teachers’ handbooks, paid rent on some facilities, and provided other materials such as chalkboards, chalk, etc. These two co-founders grew into the roles of morning school director and afternoon school director.
At the beginning of 2010, it was brought to my attention that the morning school director had been soliciting aid from tourists and different foreign visitors in the area and had gained a supporter. After coming in contact with this supporter, I learned that the morning director had led this man to believe that the school was unfunded, teachers were working voluntarily, etc. He had recently begun sending funds to the morning director to provide food for students (something we had always hoped to do but always lacked funds) and also to pay teachers. Food was provided for students but when asked about the teacher salary money, the morning director had no answer.
This situation caused division in the school. I stayed in contact with this supporter, letting him know that I had hoped he would become a Project Esperanza supporter, which would’ve been the way to do things in the first place. I also would update him on the behavior of the morning director, which had gotten very destructive and out of control. He began locking classrooms with locks only he had the key to, inhibiting afternoon teachers and students from entering to hold class. He took chairs out of classrooms and stored them elsewhere and spoke very nastily to both me and the afternoon director, co-founder, and ex-good friend. On the last day of school, he actually boarded up the entrance of the building to try to inhibit the afternoon school from entering and taking their final exams. Staff removed the boards and administered the exams, only to have the morning director show up and order students to leave halfway through.
I assumed that the supporter would see this destruction and no longer support this individual. Five of the seven teachers/directors and I have stuck together, preparing to open the school in a separate location on September 6th. Those missing from the group are the morning director and his girlfriend who, in our last staff meeting where everything was addressed, appeared to be in support of the morning director, her boyfriend, and was lying for him. Therefore, we did not invite her to move on with us.
Muñoz, 2008
We were thrown for a bit of a loop when the supporter visited in July and decided to pay the rent for a year on the building we had abandoned to avoid conflict and to continue supporting the morning director. He led me on until the last minute, leading me to believe he was interested in becoming a Project Esperanza supporter. It would’ve made more sense being that we are a registered non-profit in the U.S. and Dominican Republic, rather than channeling funds to an individual who has proven nothing but his selfish ambition over the past year. However, this decision revealed something about the supporter and his values as well.
Leading up to his decision, I repeated each time I spoke to him that our first priority should be to avoid division and the separation into two schools. That would be ridiculous and unnecessary. On several occasions I offered to put him in contact with other churches or individuals in Puerto Plata who had begun or were attempting to begin similar schools in their communities to serve Haitian immigrant kids who were not in school otherwise. He was not interested in this. We are not interested in abandoning the children and parents we have formed relationships with over the past four years in this community where the school is. So we find ourselves in a battle.
After weeks of registering kids and talking to parents, it seems as though the majority have registered with us. Some parents decided to send two kids to one school and two kids to the other to keep the peace. I feel ridiculous to be engaged in such a competition where two groups fight over one marginalized neighborhood rather than separating to cover more underserved ground. But I think the community understands that Project Esperanza’s presence is a protective one and not an exploitative one. Those who do not understand that yet will hopefully come to understand.
Caitlin McHale is currently living in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic as the co-founder and executive director of Project Esperanza. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.
Latest posts by camchale
- A Little Puppy & Immigration Control - February 20th, 2012
- They Call Me La Morena: Race in the Dominican Republic - January 18th, 2012
- Doing Fair Trade in an Unfair Society and World - December 15th, 2011
- The Maestro Took the Money! - December 3rd, 2011
- ¿Qué es "el sereno"? - November 8th, 2011
- Our New Bundle of Joy! - October 4th, 2011
- The Case of the Missing Laptop: Part 2 - September 13th, 2011
- The Case of the Missing Laptop: Part 1 - September 6th, 2011
- Reproductive Freedom in a Different Light - August 27th, 2011
- Diabetes and High Blood Pressure: Deadly Diseases on the Island of Hispañola - August 23rd, 2011
