The power of possibility

From the seed of an idea, to a project with a targeted completion within a few months:

Once upon a time there was an AMIGOS DR community with an interest in practicing Taino sculpture. Youth within this community had found Taino (a Caribbean indigenous culture) art pieces within the nearby mountains and taught themselves how to sculpt pieces in a similar style.

Some youth within the community had one of those "pie in the sky" ideas - "Wouldn't it be great if we had materials to host a formal workshop to not only practice and improve our art, but also to pass along the knowledge to the younger children in the community?" I heard about this idea when discussing possible grant opportunities with PLAN. From what I understood, the youth in this community had already begun soliciting funding for this project, and that the main components were sculpture tools and machinery, as well as organizational assistence and mentorship.

After discussing the idea with PLAN contacts in more detail, we decided to move forward toward crafting a proposal for AMIGOS. Going out to the community of El Capa, it soon became clear that while there was much passion for this project, there had not been much, if any, planning for this particular project. The project proposal, with detailed project objectives and justifications, was missing. Additionally, there was no location for the taller yet. Given the tight timeline that AMIGOS works under during the summer, this seemed like a challenge to accomplish within little more than a month.

PLAN, however, latched onto the vision of the workshop. Not only is it an excellent microenterprise opportunity (strengthening the financial opportunities within this rural community), but it is focused on cultural preservation as well as upon youth leadership. The teenaged and young adult leaders of the Neo-Taino Artesan Group would lead this workshop, gaining valuable experience managing a small organization/business, as well as experience in teaching other young people about Taino culture and art.

PLAN led the process of guiding the youth through the visioning process for the taller, from that "pie in the sky" idea all the way down to the number of nails needed for constructing a building capable of holding this dual-fold workshop (artist workshop as well as training workshop).

After several long days of this planning and detailing, I submitted the grant application, and a period of waiting on the judgement, the grant was approved! While there is little time left with AMIGOS volunteers in the community, PLAN has taken ownership of this project and all levels of the organization within the DR are committed to seeing this project to completion. Within a few months, there should be a working edifice for practicing the art. For the next year, the youth in charge of the project will have training on organization management, managing funds.
For the next years, this community will be empowered to make a name for itself as leaders in contemporary Taino sculpture and as preserving a key part of the Dominican Taino culture.

And I'm off tomorrow to see the ground-breaking ceremony for this project.

Sustainable Community Development

One of the areas of focus this summer with the AMIGOS program has been on the promotion of sustainable community development. While AMIGOS has a long history of working in Latin American countries on promoting community development, and has been working toward community development, this has been a major focus within the Dominican Republic project this year.

Most AMIGOS projects have some sort of Community Based Initiative (CBI), a small project initiated from within a community for volunteers and community members to focus on during the AMIGOS volunteer's time in the community.

How are we different? Here's how:

1. Emphasize the importance of the process of the CBI. While the actual painting of a mural, or the construction of a playground is important, we have worked on training the community youth on the process of the community, its values and strengths, and the visioning process of what possibilities we have for further strengthening these values. As the community and youth become more familiar with this process, they are able to carry out this process (and the subsequent proposal planning and implementation) on their own.
2. We changed the terminology based on cultural meanings. While Community Based Initiative typically translates to "proyecto comunitario" in Spanish, the term proyecto carries the connotation of a large construction-based project. Instead, we are using the term "Iniciativa pequena de la comunidad" to better convey the community-based focus as well as the small-ness of our initiatives (most of our initiatives are within the $350 USD range).
3. Encourage communities to participate in fundraising outside of the AMIGOS proposal process. Many of our communities are supporting significant portions of the "iniciativas pequenas" - some more than 50%, and one is completely supporting the financial aspects of the initiative!

Between these key points of focus in our project, as well as focused training to our volunteers as well as community youth on the Community Based Initiatives and process, we have been having a successful, and in my mind - sustainable, process for working within our communities this summer!

Collaboration - the meaning of partnership

Here in the Dominican Republic, AMIGOS is working with a partnering organization on all aspects of our project. We are collaborating with PLAN International, an international development organization focused on youth participation.


We have worked jointly with PLAN in all aspects of the program planning, implementation and evaluation process. The first project-related activities this summer was meeting with the national level contacts to establish focus for our volunteer program and a chronology for the summer.


Some of the joys of working with a partnering agency:

• Our partner contacts know and understand the communities and cultures we work in much better than we do. They have established relationships with our contacts in communities, and know best on how to approach challenging situations. There have been more than one occasion where sharing the challenges we are experiencing with our PLAN contacts have helped to ensure a swift resolution to the issues at hand.
• Our PLAN contacts also have worked with the AMIGOS programs in previous years and have the first-hand experience of lessons learned. As the AMIGOS project leadership changes yearly, we strive to benefit from the lessons learned, and the strength of our partnering agency relationship helps to ensure this.
• More fun! We have forged some great friendships with the people at the PLAN offices, and have enjoyed getting together on the weekends, or exploring some of the cultural opportunities (namely the craziness that was the Dias Patronales festival).

One of the challenges with our partnering agency relationships is that through AMIGOS we have a short timeframe to build our relationships and to leverage them for the success of the program. We are lucky to have such dynamic contacts within PLAN for this reason, and I imagine that there would be further strength by having continuity within the AMIGOS program over time as well.

Overall the partnering process between AMIGOS and PLAN has been a positive relationship building. Like any relationship (think about our personal and family relationships), it takes time to build and a lot of give and take. But this relationship is one that has a great effect upon the success of the AMIGOS program in the Dominican Republic.