Community development is a broad field and includes any work that makes communities stronger. BeachCorps Volunteers will perform simple, quickly achievable work on structures like homes, schools, playgrounds, community gardens, health clinics, and churches. Corporate partners could include Dominican and U.S. companies that sell building supplies, such as paint and cement. To make sure that local jobs are created and to avoid stealing jobs, some of the locals can be paid for their service, though actual beneficiaries will volunteer their time. Projects could focus on people-to-people engagement through sports like baseball, cultural activities like a bicultural musical, or cooking a meal for a community celebration for any worthy cause. In such a way, BeachCorps can support worthy causes in the health and social work sectors without the need for expert volunteers such as doctors and social workers.
Community Development
Interact Club of Punta Cana-Bavaro
BeachCorps is developing a FREE volunteer project to help raise funds to allow the kids of the Punta Cana-Bavaro Interact Club to visit the Pico Duarte mountain, the highest point in the Caribbean and a major rite of passage for Dominican youth. Interact is a service club program sponsored by Rotary International for youth ages 12 to 18 that seeks to foster leadership. The Punta Cana-Bavaro Interact Club is a new and fast-growing club that was started with the support of the Punta Cana-Bavaro Rotary Club and the Puntacana Group Foundation, part of the Puntacana Group.
BeachCorps is in the process of creating a regular volunteer vacation program to support the Punta Cana-Bavaro Interact Club that will divide donations from BeachCorps volunteers with 50% going towards costs for community development project designed by the Interact kids and 50% towards scholarship funds to support Interact kids who help bring positive change to their communities. Use Coupon Code INTERACTPOWER (Limit: 10 coupons total)
The Puntacana Group Foundation
Episcopal Development
The Dominican Development Group (DDG), a non-profit organization within The Episcopal Church, coordinates the work of the Episcopal mission teams from the United States who work in the Dominican Republic each year and assists the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic in achieving financial self-sufficiency. The DDG works closely with the Episcopal dioceses across the United States and helps coordinate the work of other organizations that support mission teams and other projects in the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic. Approximately 50 Episcopal Church mission teams from the United States come to work in the Diocese of the Dominican Republic each year. The DDG helps in a variety of construction projects and assists in promoting education, one of the primary missions of the Dominican Episcopal Church. The DDG is a Partner Organization in the Global Episcopal Mission Network (GEMN), and the DDG’s Executive Director is a member of GEMN’s Board of Directors.
UNIBE Scholarship Programs
The Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) in Cap Cana is part of the top-rated UNIBE higher education chain in the Dominican Republic, including some of the finest curriculum in tourism and sustainable tourism. UNIBE already has an excellent scholarship program to open the doors to quality higher education to more qualified applicants in the Dominican Republic. BeachCorps and UNIBE are currently preparing plans for UNIBE students (including UNIBE scholarship recipients) to join BeachCorps volunteers to execute community development projects in the Punta Cana region. In this way, even projects that serve the poorest communities will include the “pay it forward” element since UNIBE scholarship recipients will be giving back and leading by example.