Supporting Guasa
Focus: Community and Education.
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Project Description
Supporting Guasa is a grassroots organisation which works in the village of Ramon Santana, a.k.a Guasa (Wah-Sah), and its surrounding batey communities. Through educational projects, we aim to ensure the citizens of Guasa can develop their own skills to increase their life opportunities and ultimately avoid becoming trapped in a cycle of poverty.
We work closely with a local voluntary organisation and we believe that our actions and work should be dictated by the needs of the community, as expressed by the community.
Our projects include:
The English summer school: This project involves the volunteer(s) teaching English in Guasa and travelling to the batey communities. Children, teens and adults attend the classes.
The book club: This project, for the moment, takes place in Guasa and the volunteer(s) facilitate sessions based around a book. The sessions involve activities aimed at fostering a love of reading, developing spelling, grammar skills and their knowledge of literary devices as well as allowing them to practice writing and acting.
The girl's project: This project takes place in the batey communities and involves volunteers facilitating sessions via a range of stimuli based around key issues for women and girls in the Dominican Republic. This project is undertaken with guidance from locals and with respect for local beliefs and values.
The skills workshop: This project is still being designed but is likely to include longer sessions based around, principally, ICT skills aimed at encouraging employment opportunities.
The above projects all take place for a minimum of six weeks during the Dominican summer vacation (Usually July - mid August).
School based English project: This is a longer term project where the volunteer(s) go into the schools to teach English either independently or in partnership with local teachers. Volunteers are expected to work for at least three months.
Volunteer Information
Costs & Benefits
Requirements
Contact information
Project Summary
The specific responsibilities vary from role to role but all volunteers are expected to have a positive and flexible attitude.
During the summer volunteers work Monday - Thursday for around 4-7 hours a day. All of the volunteer roles include some travel to the rural batey communities.
During the school semester the volunteer will work four days of the week for a full school day. Some of this work will take place in the primary school and some in the high school.
As well as teaching all volunteers must document their work in a blog and attend meetings with the local community organisation.
Volunteers should be aware that as the Dominican Republic is a developing country not all home comforts are available. There are often power blackouts and there is not usually a 24 hour running water service.
The organisation covers costs for food and accommodation during the volunteer's stay as well as airport pick-up service when the volunteers arrive.
The volunteers must pay for their travel to and from the Dominican Republic and any associated costs (visas, tourist cards etc), their travel back to the airport at the end of their stay and any personal travel or accommodation as well as food they consume outside of their host family home.
Volunteers must:
be over 18 years old
be able to speak some Spanish (the level of Spanish depends on the project applied for)
be independent, flexible and hardworking
speak English as a native language or to an excellent standard (for English teaching)
Ideally volunteers should have experience with children, volunteering or travelling but we do look at every application on a case by case basis.
Supporting Guasa
Marklandsgatan 65,
414 77 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Tel: +46735444204
Email: info@supportingguasa.com
Website: www.supportingguasa.com
Location: Ramon Santana, Dominican Republic
Average cost per day: Free
Focus: Community and Education
Skills needed: - be over 18 years old
Speak some Spanish (the level of Spanish depends on the project applied for), independent, flexible and hardworking, English as a native language or to an excellent standard (for English teaching)