COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
Dream Volunteers is committed to empowering change-makers all over the globe by ensuring they have access to the education, opportunities, and resources they need to reach their potential. As part of that commitment, we support students, families, and communities through sustainable development initiatives. We focus on community-identified needs and priorities (typically those for which other sources of funding are unavailable), and these development initiatives become the basis for our service trip projects. Local students, community members and service trip volunteers work side-by-side, learning, working and collaborating together. Collectively we are able to address persistent challenges with creative, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable solutions.
Community development projects have included:
> Rebuilding and paving a road in Providencia, Costa Rica
- Rebuilding and paving part of the road that provides access in and out of Providencia de Dota, Costa Rica after hurricanes washed out a major portion of the previously dirt road
- Enabled the local farmers to get their coffee beans to market, students to get to school, and community members to have access in and out of town
> Classroom construction in Vuelta Grande, Guatemala
- The excavation and construction of a new classroom at a community school in Vuelta Grande, Guatemala
- Created space for 50 new students including the admission of a new kindergarten/pre-school cohort and liberating older siblings from caregiving duties so they too could return to school and complete their studies
> Setting up a neighborhood community center in Jaipur, India
- Setting up a neighborhood community center in Jaipur, India
- Serves as a tutoring center and a place for women’s groups to offer programming enabling unschooled young women to gain job training and independence and our own Young Dreamer scholars to plan community service projects
> Establishing a recycling collection center in Costa Rica
- Building a recycling center out of eco-bricks in Providencia de Dota, Costa Rica
- The center is both a collection center, enabling students to take charge of community recycling efforts, and a demonstration platform highlighting alternate uses for plastic to inspire change. The community now recycles more than 170 pounds per month of what would have been landfill.
> Building homes for displaced victims of the Volcán de Fuego
- Building new homes for families displaced by a major volcanic eruption outside of Antigua, Guatemala.
- The catastrophic volcano, the most severe in half a century, killed more than 165 people and affected over 1.7 million people across central Guatemala as entire villages were overwhelmed by clouds of ash and deadly lava flow.
These are just a few of the many projects and persistent needs in the communities we serve. These collaborations are also an important aspect of our programming as we work together with the communities to devise meaningful solutions to very real challenges. We believe we have the most impact through this type of problem-solving and service. With your support, we can continue to expand our reach and our impact. Thank you!
Please support our community development fund by donating today.
