About the Project
Reach Out: Enhancing Education in the Dominican Republic is an ongoing project of the Honors Student Organization that seeks to improve the education of children in the Dominican Republic by partnering with child development centers in the country's capital, Santo Domingo.
These centers, run by Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, are a key source of education for children ages 4-15 who come from low-income families. The centers supplement the regular elementary school day, which is only two and a half hours long.
Students in the Honors Program are developing an innovative bilingual curriculum for the centers that focuses on languages arts, technology, and life skills. The Honors students will travel to Santo Domingo in January 2011 to deliver and implement the curriculum.
Project Mission and Goals
The mission of Reach Out: Enhancing Education in the Dominican Republic is to enhance and support domestic and international educational programs through establishing partnerships while emphasizing cultural understanding.
The goals of Reach Out are:
- To promote social entrepreneurship by developing a project designed to enhance educational opportunities for a community of children in the Dominican Republic.
- To take an interdisciplinary approach in designing and implementing our project in collaboration with a local child development center.
- To experience the Dominican Republic as part of a local community rather than a tourist.
- To maintain safety, care, and respect for all group members and all project partners.
- To ensure long-term project sustainability by Honors students and our partners.
Reach Out began as a social entrepreneurship initiative organized and spearheaded by students in the Honors Program Colloquium in the fall of 2009. To learn about how the project unfolded that semester, click here to view the colloquium's website.