Sep. 29th Burlington AIDS Walk and Fundraiser for Futbol para la Vida

On Saturday, September 29th, University of Vermont students, faculty and friends marched in the annual AIDS Walk in Burlington, Vermont. Organized by Vermont CARES, our team walked to raise money for the "Futbol para la Vida" HIV/AIDS prevention education project of Fundacion de Libertad. Futbol para la Vida is a member of the international Grassroot Soccer network, and includes programs that are currently running in dozens of bateyes in the Dominican Republic, run by peer educators from the communities of Batey Libertad and Saman/Caraballo (see September blog below). With much support from the upcoming November travel-study class from UVM to Batey Libertad, and with a huge thanks to Vermont CARES for letting us ride on their coattails, we raised over $2000 ... and still counting.

Thanks so much to our dozens of sponsors and to everyone who showed up for the walk on what turned out to be a perfect fall day in Vermont!

Here's a tally of what we've raised so far, with links to our secure fundraising page if you're interested in contributing.

Community Gardening in the DR ... info. meeting at UVM

Community Gardening in the Dominican Republic
PSS 196, 3 credits, Jan 2-13, 2008
University of Vermont
Instructor: John Hayden

Are you interested in traveling to the Dominican Republic and having a life changing experience working alongside Dominicans and Haitians in a service learning class geared toward sustainable agriculture? Want to find out more? Come to an informational meeting on October 3 at 7 pm in 105 Aiken.

In this class students will work on gardening/farming projects while getting to know two different communities in the Dominican Republic. We will start with 3 day visit to the small mountain town of Rio Limpio and work with an organization called "CREAR" (Centro Regional Estudios de Alternativas Rurales).

This organization trains people in sustainable agriculture techniques applicable to small scale landholders. They have introduced organic agriculture and conservation farming as an alternative to the slash-and-burn practices of the region's farmers. We will attend workshops on "double digging" and "composting" and work on projects near the village of Rio Limpio. We will also visit organic and biodynamic farms in the area.

Our next project will be at Batey Libertad, a community in the Cibao Valley of the Dominican Republic. The Batey is settled mostly by migrant Haitian workers or people of Haitian descent. There they struggle with nutrition, health and environmental issues within their community. A group of individuals are interested in starting a community farm to improve their nutrition, health and economic situation. We hope to help "jump start" their project by supplying seeds, tools and elbow grease.

Our final visit in the DR will be at a shade grown organic coffee plantation where we will learn more about the ecological, social and economic benefits of sustainable agro-forestry techniques.

Please join us Wednesday October 3 at 7 pm in 105 Aiken to find out more about this class!

University of Vermont Service-Learning Courses and Network

The University of Vermont (UVM) hosts annual travel study classes to Batey Libertad and other communities within the Fundacion de Libertad alliance. Trips are organized around service-learning projects that have emerged from community priorities and in cooperation with NGO partners such as Grassroot Soccer, the Dominican DREAM Project, and the Batey Relief Alliance. The first class in January of 2005 initiated the Grassroot Soccer HIV/AIDS curriculum and raised money to help build a local health clinic and school/community center at Batey Libertad. Subsequent classes completed construction of "el local", created a computer center for teaching basic computer literacy, provided laptops to high school and college students who are sponsored by Education Across Borders, supported activities of batey women's groups, organized community health clinics, built homes for families at Batey Libertad, and helped to expand the Futbol para la Vida HIV/AIDS prevention education program to many new communities.

The UVM program also supports other service-learning initiatives in the DR, including a June 2007 trip from Urbana High School of Illinois who built a family a home at Batey Libertad; a July 2007 HIV/AIDS program for street kids in Puerto Plata organized by Project Esperanza of Virginia Tech; and an upcoming March 2008 alternative spring break trip from Dartmouth College that will be building a community center in Saman (the north coast center for Futbol para la Vida HIV/AIDS education programs).

The 2007-08 academic year will include three new UVM service classes. During the November 2007 Thanksgiving break, Jon and Pat Erickson will lead a trip to Batey Libertad to support new HIV/AIDS programs, a community health clinic, the formalization of a language literacy and tutorial center, and the beginnings of a new community gardening project. Over the January 2008 winter break, John Hayden of Plant and Soil Sciences will lead a trip to establish community garden plots at Batey Libertad, leaving behind a student volunteer to coordinate a community farm and literacy program during the spring semester. Then over the March 2008 spring break, McKew Devitt of the Department of Romance Languages will bring a group of students to work on the literacy program, a new community library, and replace more "tin can" shanties with ventilated block constructed homes.

For more information on service-learning trips and community collaboration opportunities, please contact Jon Erickson at jon.erickson@uvm.edu, or 802-656-3328.

Community Health and Patient Advocacy

Healthy communities start with healthy people. At Batey Libertad, financial and social barriers to health care is a fact of life. However, in 2005-06 the community of Batey Libertad teamed up with students and faculty from the University of Vermont to construct a community health clinic. In the course of less than a year, what started as Dr. Pat helping out with "Mom medicine" on Papito's porch, expanded into a new building (attached to a new local school and community center) stocked with meds from MAP International and donations from Vermont practices, and with consults held every few months with U.S. doctors and medical students, Dominican physicians and nurses, and other community health volunteers.

To date in 2007, there have been four multi-day clinics, organized by community members with consults from both local and American docs. In June, doctors and medical students from the Stritch School of Medicine of Loyola University ran a health clinic during a 10-day medical mission coordinated through Creighton University’s Institute for Latin American Concern (ILAC). ILAC has also trained "Cooperadores de Salud" or health promoters at Batey Libertad who conduct "charlas" or chats with the community on preventive care, as well as identify candidates for surgery performed during medical missions at ILAC's Santiago facility. The Libertad clinic has also benefited from advice and a site visit from the Batey Relief Alliance, an NGO that helps develop health care and development programs within batey communities.

Volunteers at Batey Libertad, more often than not, also find themselves filling in as patient advocates for the poor and racially marginalized in the Dominican health care system. Community clinics serve to address the day-to-day maladies of batey living, but also to identify patients who need more critical care and help find them the attention they deserve in the health care system. Fundraisers at the University of Vermont and direct patient sponsors have supported dozens of critical care patients, including those affected by tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis-C, and diabetes, as well as aiding malnourished children and elder residents of Batey Libertad.

The community recently completed the construction of a volunteer apartment above the health clinic in order to house doctors, students, educators, and other collaborators into the future. If you'd like to inquire about opportunities to volunteer in community health efforts at Batey Libertad, please e-mail Pat Erickson at patricia.erickson@uvm.edu.

A Stroll through Batey Libertad

Take a virtual stroll through the streets of Batey Libertad. Here's a short video clip, filmed with a camera held "not so discretely" on hip, set to a re-make of "Satisfied Mind" courtesy of The Mammals.

HIV/AIDS Prevention Education

Founded at Batey Libertad, Futbol para la Vida (soccer for life) is an HIV/AIDS prevention education and youth leadership program in the Dominican Republic (DR) using sport, game-based activities, and peer mentoring to engage youth in the creation and practice of healthy life choices. A member of the international Grassroot Soccer network, Futbol para la Vida (FPV) provides bilingual Spanish/Haitian Kreyol camps and courses; training of trainers workshops for community-based peer educators, local non-governmental organization (NGO) staff, and public school and health programs; and support for youth camps, soccer tournaments, and other outreach opportunities. Core programs target at-risk youth populations in Haitian migrant communities, where a lack of investment in health care and education has contributed to some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the Caribbean and Latin America, and where the Haitian love and pride for soccer has been leveraged among youth and their families.

The DR and Haiti together account for 85% of HIV cases in the Caribbean. Batey communities are particularly vulnerable to the epidemic due to a long history of marginalization and impoverishment, factors highlighted in a focal article on bateyes in Science magazine’s July 2006 cover story on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean and Latin America (v. 313, pp. 473-75).

FPV developed from a 2005 pilot project between the community of Batey Libertad, the University of Vermont, and Grassroot Soccer (GRS). Demonstration of the GRS curriculum, identification of local role models, and subsequent training of peer educators was leveraged on the Batey Libertad Coalition, an existing collaboration between Vermont and Batey student athletes using soccer as a platform to develop youth leaders, mobilize community assets, and address racial tensions between Dominicans and Haitians [Listen to NPR coverage on GRS in the DR]. Batey Libertad remains the focal point of FPV activities in the Valverde province (one of the DR’s prominent agricultural regions), and is home to program management, trainings, and special events at the FPV training center constructed in 2006. A second core program was developed in the province of Puerto Plata in early 2007 to focus on sugar cane bateyes and migrant communities that have developed around the tourism industry of the north coast. Here the communities of Saman and Batey Caraballo have been apart of a baseline study of HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitudes amongst youth, conducted with pre- and post-program participant and family interviews. A third focal program started in the fall of 2007 in the city of Santiago (the DR’s second largest city). Partnering with NGOs and a university in Santiago will add urban slums as a third type of community where migrant workers and their families are concentrated.

The activities-based curriculum engages youth, models healthy life choices, and provides a fun and safe environment for youth to obtain accurate information, learn prevention strategies, and discuss AIDS stigma, risky behaviors, and other sensitive topics with peers and role models. Each activity is designed as an ice-breaker that leads to discussion amongst peers. These core programs are run with groups of 15 children in age brackets of 10-14 year olds and 15 and over. A typical course is run over a series of 5 to 6 meetings totaling 15 hours, organized locally and coordinated initially by peer educators from neighboring communities. As new role models are identified and trained, programs are turned over to local peer educators. Each course is followed by a graduation planned by the children and including performances of dramas, demonstration of FPV activities, and presentation of certificates by parents and community leaders. Soccer games are often included as a vehicle to reach beyond the graduation audience, with FPV activity demonstrations held at halftime including athletes and fans alike, and with the opportunity to distribute information about HIV transmission, prevention strategies, testing and treatment options, and compassion for AIDS victims.

As the FPV program first developed in batey communities, the majority of current trainers can deliver bilingual programs in Spanish and Haitian Kreyol. This is critical to breaking the language barrier with recent immigrants, particularly among young girls who often work at home with their mothers and lack the opportunities to learn Spanish afforded to boys. Whenever possible, FPV classes are also designed with a mix of Dominican and Haitian children to address racial discrimination and build peer networks and solidarity amongst the poor. Follow-up activities to courses vary by location, but include soccer tournaments, youth groups, and “Olympiads” of knowledge and skill competitions between graduating FPV classes.

The more experienced trainers of these core programs also conduct 5-day intensive “training of trainers” workshops to expand the network of community peer educators and train staff and volunteers in the growing network of NGOs using the Spanish translation of the GRS curriculum. Trainings include lessons on basic HIV/AIDS education, facilitation and evaluation of the FPV curriculum, peer education philosophy, development of role models, and program design, implementation, and evaluation. Examples of local partner organizations with FPV programs and trained staff include the Dominican Republic Education and Mentoring (DREAM) Project and Proyecto ADAMES. The DREAM Project has incorporated FPV programs into their annual summer camp and teacher training center, including pre- and post-evaluation and graduations. Proyecto ADAMES has developed a health promotion program for teens and pre-teens based on FPV training and the GRS curriculum as an extension to their work on reducing mother and infant mortality. Other NGOs in the network that have hosted FPV demonstrations include Peace Corps, One Resp, Batey Relief Alliance, Punta Cana Foundation, and World Vision. FPV programs also benefit from ongoing collaboration on program design and evaluation with the DR’s Presidential AIDS Council (COPRESIDA). The core FPV programs at Batey Libertad and Saman/Caraballo also support special events, including follow-up training activities, research on HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitudes, and special camps, soccer tournaments, or curriculum demonstrations. For example, FPV trainers supported a summer soccer camp for street kids in Puerto Plata during July 2007, a camp organized though a service-learning project of Virginia Tech.

Faculty and student volunteers of the University of Vermont, through a fund established with the community of Batey Libertad, provide program oversight and fundraising for locally managed FPV programs. UVM offers annual service-learning courses to the DR to help initiate community projects, including the original pilot of the GRS curriculum, subsequent demos that led to new FPV programs, and construction of the FPV training center at Batey Libertad. In addition to these intensive project-based trips, FPV programs have benefited from a continuous stream of longer term volunteers through a teaching fellows program. Volunteers have included Vermont high school soccer players and college students from UVM, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Dartmouth College. This volunteer base also organizes fundraising events in the U.S., ranging from raffles and Haitian art sales to AIDS walks and barefoot soccer tournaments. Student volunteers and soccer moms and dads have also worked extensively with public school teams and private soccer clubs to collect used soccer equipment and raise money through juggle-a-thons and soccer tournaments. This growing network includes schools and clubs in Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Illinois, as well as equipment donations coordinated through the U.S. Soccer Foundation Passback program.

The next steps for FPV in the DR include expansion of courses and addition of trainers in communities near the three core programs of Batey Libertad, Saman/Caraballo, and Santiago. A fourth core will be added in early 2008 in the border city of Dajabon with extensions into its sister city of Ouanaminthe on the Haitian side. In the future, a Dajabon program could open up opportunities to train soccer players to run FPV programs in Haiti, as well as create opportunities for international soccer tournaments. A translation of the curriculum into Kreyol is underway (Foutbol pou Lavi). New NGOs requesting FPV training include World Vision (with programs in bateyes in the south) and One Resp (with soccer programs in Santiago). The Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) in Santiago is also interested in adding FPV training as part of their public health programs for undergraduates and medical students. There have also been preliminary discussions over offering annual trainings for Peace Corps volunteers who work throughout the DR. Finally, with the foundation of a Spanish language curriculum, baseline study of its effectiveness, and model for training of trainers, there are now opportunities to expand FPV into Latin America. A former Peace Corps volunteer, who completed a FPV training in the DR, is introducing the FPV curriculum in rural communities of Honduras. Through this contact, a current Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador is utilizing the FPV curriculum.

For more information about Futbol para la Vida, please contact Jon Erickson at the University of Vermont (jon.erickson@uvm.edu).

Welcome to Fundación de Libertad!

We are a coalition of organizations working in the Dominican Republic to build a foundation of health, education, and human rights from which freedom (libertad) can emerge both locally and worldwide. The foundation has its roots in the community of Batey Libertad in the heart of the Cibao agricultural valley northwest of Santiago, Dominican Republic. Similar to hundreds of bateyes throughout the country, Libertad is home to both Dominican citizens and migrant workers from Haiti, originally established by the Dominican government in the 1940s as a work camp for state-supported agriculture.

The legacy of bateyes today is one of extreme poverty, isolation, and lack of access to basic needs and human rights. Bateyes are physically isolated from Dominican society amidst the cane and rice fields of the DR; socially marginalized through a history of racism, military and police raids, and routine denial of rights of citizenship, health care, and education; and economically vulnerable to international commodity price swings, seasonal labor demand, and a general lack of land ownership and social services.

To build a new legacy of sustainable livelihoods and equality, Batey Libertad works in solidarity with a network of U.S. and Dominican universities, non-governmental organizations, and volunteers from around the world in the broad areas of health, education, and human rights. Projects include community health clinics and advocacy, education scholarships, language and computer literacy classes, documentation for citizenship and migrant workers, youth sport and leadership development, HIV/AIDS prevention education, and home construction and community infrastructure through service-learning trips and university classes.

Support for these projects is generated through grassroots fundraisers, direct sponsorship of students and families affected by chronic illness, equipment and medicine donations from businesses and soccer clubs, and community visits and home-stays by students and other volunteers.

This blog was founded as a clearinghouse of sorts to provide updates on all the goings-on at Batey Libertad and the growing network of communities that these projects and the good people of Libertad have touched. We hope this small step can help us all keep in touch, informed, and empowered.

Men anpil chay pa lou.

(Haitian Kreyol proverb: "Many hands make the load lighter")