Celebrando el Cibao 2009

If you remember from last year, I helped organize a diversity and leadership conference for youth in my region of the DR. This year, I was a co-coordinator, and the conference was a big success. Thank you for all who helped make it so by donating online at the Peace Corps website.

This year, we held the conference at a center in a mountain valley by the River Yaque, where we were able to take the participants one afternoon. We were lucky enough to have representatives from the synagogue and mosque in the capital, as well as a Haitian immigration activist, speak to the youth. Fellow international volunteers from Korea visited our conference, and we held an “around-the-world” fair with music and displays from over 20 countries designed by Volunteers and their youth. We also created an activity for the youth to understand a little more about America through the lens of the Volunteers – since after all, we are representatives of America, we are something of a microcosm of American society.

Although the conference lasted just three days, we managed to pack in as much as possible. The conference is an opportunity for us to talk to our youth about topics rarely discussed in school, at home, or in society – the existence of minority religious and cultural communities, the treatment of those with disability and disease, and the entrenched web of money and privilege which these youth can see, but are implicitly left out of.