Dominican Republic: Global Health Initiative Program for Teens

Over the course of my ten day trip in the Dominican Republic I met many new friends (both native and volunteers,) learned about sustainability, all while feeling completely safe and taken care of! I would recommend this program to anyone between ages of an incoming freshman to an outgoing senior. This program taught me all about how other people live and I am forever thankful to my parents for sending me on the trip and the staff members for creating such a great experience! Go to experiencegla.com to book your trip now!

Global Leadership Adventures is an amazing program! The 10 days of the Beachside Service Adventure trip were the best 10 days of my life! The service was humbling, the locals very welcoming, and the environment very safe. I loved getting to know the local schoolchildren while we were building the bottle schools, and getting to tour the villages! The staff was fantastic. I was a little nervous going in because I had never been away for so long before, but I felt secure and comfortable the entire time I was there. I met some of my best friends on this trip by bonding over the life changing experience! I recommend Global Leadership Adventures' programs to anyone who wants to make a difference in the world.

This past summer, I went to the Dominican Republic with Global Leadership Adventures. I can honestly say I couldn't be happier with my decision to go abroad with this amazing program. It was such a life changing experience and I owe it all to GLA. I will never forget my trip and the life long friends I made. I learned so much about the lives of the people there and how much of an affect we have on them. It was educational and fun and I couldn't think of a better way to see such a beautiful country. The locals were so welcoming and helpful. Overall, this is such a great program and I couldn't thank GLA enough for all they did for me.

I spent 10 days volunteering in Haitian and Dominican communities in the Dominican Republic. It was a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone in high school. I learned so much about sustainability, politics, and the environment, and am inspired to make a lasting positive impact on this country.

I went on the Dominican Republic Beach Side Service Adventure trip and I can truthfully say that my life has been changed for the better. My time in the DR taught me the importance of global awareness and how what we do can affect others so profoundly. I feel so blessed to have gotten to be a part of the bottle school construction. We built the largest bottle school in the world in Caraballo- a Haitian and Dominican community. The school has 6 classrooms! We also built a bottle clinic in Las Canas and picked up trash in La Grua. What stuck out to me was all the smiles on the local kids' faces. When our bus pulled up to our work site, they would all come running and grab our hands and we would play with them and they helped us with the work. The kids were always excited to see us and their happiness was contagious, making all of us happy to do the work. There was this one little boy in Las Canas, his name was Juan, and he insisted on helping me spread cement. And when we needed a break, we would hit around a baseball for a little bit. I'll never forget the people I met because they were the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. While the work was fun, it was also hard- so we were rewarded with two off days. The first one we went to Dudu Lagoon where we jumped into a fresh water lagoon that was freezing cold. If you didn't want to jump you could zipline in which is preferable for people like me who are afraid of heights. The second day, we went snorkeling and shopping in Sosua. That was great because I had the chance to buy my family and friends some Dominican souvenirs and also practice some bartering. While I enjoyed the relaxation, I mostly wanted to be at the work sites. That was one thing I would change for the program- more time at the work sites. This program taught me the importance of hard work and also the importance of kindness. Thanks to my experience, I want to continue working abroad doing things like this. Global Leadership Adventures is the perfect experience for teen service and adventure and I really recommend it to everyone in high school!

Last August, I had the opportunity to go the Dominican Republic on a 10 day service trip with Global Leadership Adventures. It was without a doubt inspiring, life changing, and amazing in every way. But there is so much more to the program than just that. I describe it as life changing, but it wasn't just my life that experienced alterations. By doing meaningful service in impoverished communities and changing someone else's life, I know that I made a difference.

My program was a balance of service and adventure. For the service aspect, I got to work on what will be the largest bottle house in the world once it's completed. Built from thrown away plastic bottles, the sustainable 6-room house will serve as a medical facility and a school, among other things. We met the doctor who is going to be utilizing the space for a clinic. He had such a passion about the work that he does. It made me so grateful to be a member of the team, and helped me to visualize the immediate impact my work would have.

I strongly recommend this trip to any teen. If you are considering going on a trip, do not hesitate. Yes, you will have to jump outside your comfort zone, but you will learn to love it after just one day. Go on a service trip to change the lives of others for the better, and your life will change as a result.

During my transformational service trip in the Dominican Republic, I experienced aspects of poverty that I have never seen before. Members of my volunteer group and I were told that we were going to be completing various tasks involving manual labor as part of several service projects that would help alleviate some of the symptoms of poverty seen in two villages and a Haitian Refugee camp in the Dominican Republic. I was introduced to many Dominican and Haitian children and was completely immersed into their culture. I made many new friends and felt that the impoverished communities that I had been working with provided me with the greatest gifts that I could ever ask for: awareness, empathy, and a drive to make a difference.

I didn't really know what to expect when going on my GLA trip to the Dominican Republic but I came back much more motivated and excited than when I had left. That's what is special about the GLA program in the DR. You experience social, environmental, and economic problems firsthand and return enlightened with a sense of empowerment of how to address sustainability issues at home.

The lodging is quite authentic, being housed in structures built with traditional materials open to the outside. The pool and the beach are nearby, perfect for a much-needed cool down after a hard day's work. The food, which consists almost entirely of chicken, rice, and beans, along with the island's fresh fruit, is simple yet delicious. There is plenty of fun to be had snorkeling, hiking up Brison, zip-lining into a giant pit of water, and just spending time at the beach. Of course there is still lots of work which I found the most rewarding. We worked on building bottle schools, creating a trail for an eco-tourism venue, digging a huge trench to reroute a river in order to prevent flooding, constructing an aquaponics system, participating in a reforestation project, clearing invasive species, and simply cleaning up the beach. We also visited Dajabon, a town on the Haitian border; we stayed in Jarabocoa, a town in the mountains; we also ventured to the 500-year-old capital, Santo Domingo. All of these excursions were fascinating new experiences.

My favorite part of the trip was time spent in Ascensión, a Haitian refugee village where we worked on building a bottle school. We saw actual poverty firsthand, where the villagers were cut off from outside recourses, live without the basic necessities that citizenship provides, and often eat only once every other day. This is what inspired me to go home and continue to try to make a difference, and helped determine what I want to do with my life. I would recommend going to the DR with GLA to anyone.