Algodon
Dominican Republic
Algodon, located just three miles from downtown Barahona, is the first community Children of the Nations (Niños de las Naciones, as we are known in the Dominican Republic) began ministering to in the Dominican Republic. Algodon is a batey (pronounced BAH-tay), one of 400+ shanty-town work camps originally erected in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s to house migrant sugarcane cutters brought over from Haiti. (To find out more visit The Origin of the Dominican Batey.)
Algodon is a predominantly Haitian-Dominican community. (A “Haitian-Dominican” is defined as a Haitian legally living in the Dominican Republic but not recognized as a citizen.) The approximately 300 families (1,500+) that reside in Algodon—second- and third-generation families born in the Dominican Republic to migrant-worker Haitians who originally came to the Dominican Republic as early as the 1960s—lack Dominican citizenship, therefore are not recognized by the government and are denied access to social services including education and medial care. Life in Algodon is difficult—to say that the living conditions or amenities are sub-standard is an understatement. Homes are made of loose wooden boards with dirt floors and leaky roofs. There is no indoor plumbing, only communal latrines. Potable water is rare. Electricity, non-existent.
When Children of the Nations first came to Algodon in the summer of 1997, they found two teachers making due with a makeshift classroom consisting of a mud hut with cracks in the walls and roof that allowed rain in, broken desks (of which there were only twenty) and no teaching materials. One of the teachers worked with 37 primary-aged students, the other with 30 intermediate-aged students. These 67 students represented less than half of the school-age children in the village.
Later that year, Children of the Nations officially launched the Algodon Village Partnership Program focusing the education and nutrition. By 1998 we had completed construction of a school building and a feeding center. Only six years later, Algodon had its first-ever high school graduate! Today, five young adults from Algodon are enrolled in our University Student Program—three in medical school, one finishing up his degree in dentistry, and one attending community college!
Through our Village Partnership Program, aided by our committed staff and encouraged by the graduation of dozens of young people in this village, the enrollment of the school continues to increase. Parents, of which an estimated 90% cannot read nor write, now have hope for the future of their children. The continual growth of the Algodon Village Partnership Program coupled with our children’s success will have a tremendous impact on the socio-economic growth of not only this batey, but the nation of the Dominican Republic as well.
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Algodon Village Partnership Program Details |
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Initial Assessed Needs: |
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Date Village Partnership Program launched: |
1997 |
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Number of children currently enrolled in program: |
151 |
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Programs/Services currently provided: |
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