The team is comprised of 33 travelers from Watkinson School, the University High School of Engineering, and UConn Health. Myriad sponsorship opportunities are available to support our 2019 Dominican Republic Service Team.
Watkinson School will send 33 travelers to spend a week in La Romana, the Dominican Republic from November 23-30, 2019. Working alongside their hosts from the Good Samaritan Hospital, the travelers will spend their week running medical clinics, distributing food, and building hurricane-proof homes for the displaced Haitians who live in sugar cane work camps, also known as bateys. Over the course of the previous 9 trips, Watkinson School has brought more than 350 travelers to the region, built 8 hurricane-proof houses, treated more than 6300 patients, gave out more than 5000 pairs of shoes, and distributed more than 8000 food kits.
The group is comprised of 24 private high school students aged 13-18 and 9 faculty members and parents. This is the tenth annual service-learning trip Watkinson has sent to this region. The Watkinson faculty who will travel with the team this year are Jenni French, Rick Gemme, and Arielle Martins. In addition to Watkinson students, this year’s trip has travelers from Hartford’s University High School of Science and Engineering (UHSSE) and UConn Health.
Trip leader Jenni French commented, “Watkinson is privileged to have formed deep partnerships with the University High School of Science and Engineering and UConn Health. Now in their eighth year, these partnerships have developed in meaningful and unexpected ways to the betterment of both the students who travel and the people we serve.”
There are numerous sponsorship opportunities attached to the service work. If you’d like to support this landmark trip, please contact Director of Development Jennifer Destefani.
The service trip to the Dominican Republic is part of Watkinson’s popular Global Studies program that has curricular, co-curricular, travel, and service-learning components.
