PAST RESULTS

Dominican Republic - Heart of the Community

January – December 2003

Early Education Centres

During the first six months of the program, 6 brand new early education centres were opened to meet the high demand for services. As a result over 200 children are attending programs for the very first time! Opening the centres involved the purchase of pedagogical materials as well as tables and chairs. When you add those six new centres to the other six centres that Pueblito is supporting, a total of 520 children were benefiting from early education programs in 2003.

Pueblito and local partner UJEDO provide training to the 34 facilitators who work in the centres to increase the quality of care the children receive. The facilitators participated in training workshops in the fall of 2003 and as of January 2004 follow-up visits had begun to help facilitators implement training concepts in their centres.

Primary Health Care

38 community health promoters have been receiving training to provide first aid and encourage referrals to primary health care services for their 12 communities. They run oral rehydration centres where families can bring children in danger of dehydrating from severe bouts of diarrhea which is all too common.

The current economic crisis and political difficulties in the Dominican Republic have made vaccines scarce and expensive. Nonetheless, our program was able to provide immunizations for 100 children in fall 2003 and a larger scale vaccination campaign is planned for 2004.

Supporting Families

In the fall parents' circles were established to support each of the 12 early education centres. The parents/primary caregivers have begun to meet monthly to plan and assist with activities as well as find recyclable materials for activities in the centres. These 80 parents who formed the circles will also recruit more parents to participate thus strengthening the ties between centre and home. Many of the parents participated in a study to determine what common parenting practices are in use in the community and also find out what skills parents would like to know more about. Our partners at UJEDO are completing the study which will result in a program to support parenting based on their needs.

Community Involvement

In December 2003 almost 20 community organizations that work with young children organized an early education fair with activities and information to encourage families to make early education a part of children's lives. Through a mix of fun and games and advocacy for early learning we hope to see an increase in enrollment in the new school year.