"It has completely changed my perspective"

In July 2018, Futuro Lleno de Esperanza welcomed four international interns to live and work with and in our community. They've been asked to share their experience in the form of a blogpost.

If you are interested in experiencing the Dominican Republic in the summer of 2019, we will be launching our intern applications in the coming weeks. We strive to offer low cost international experiences for teenagers that benefit both our community and the interns development and growth.

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Six months before I moved to Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, I couldn't exactly pinpoint the island on the map. I knew near to nothing about the DR and my Spanish had been rusty after nearly two years of infrequent use. So what possessed me to go do an internship at Futuro Lleno de Esperanza?

Let me introduce myself! My name is Anni Schleicher, I am a 21 year old senior college student at Maastricht University in the Netherlands studying European Studies. I was born in the United States but raised in Germany, living nearly exactly a decade in both countries before moving to the Netherlands for university. Thanks to my bilingual upbringing and my passion for working with children, I had gathered lots of working experience teaching, tutoring and camp counseling in various different learning environments prior to my arrival in Santiago, so I was very motivated to go!

Melanie, the director of Futuro Lleno de Esperanza welcomed me with open arms into her home for the entirety of my stay in the DR as exchange for my services as a camp counselor. It was the first time Futuro had ever held camp during summer vacation, so we were eager to entertain the neighborhood children by conducting simple scientific experiments, doing various arts and crafts projects as well as other various outdoor activities. We held camp every weekday from 2 to 5PM, giving us the mornings and weekends off.

The first week I was only accompanied by Futuro`s current long-term intern and my now good friend Lee (South Korea); however, during the next two weeks three US-American interns, Chris, Alex and Hayes arrived from New Jersey and Florida. The extra hands were surely needed since the word had spread about camp and more and more kids showed up at Futuro each week. We quickly turned from intern buddies to good friends, exploring the northern beaches of Puerto Plata, jumping off the 27 Charcos and throwing a sleepover “party” at the mission center in Navarrete. All my intern friends and Melanie even joined me to visit the capital in Santo Domingo on my return journey home. In hindsight, I can say with much gratitude that my internship experience not only improved with adjusting to the culture with time, but mainly upon the arrival of the other interns.

Before arriving in the DR, I really only expected the language to be an obstacle, but there was so
much more I failed to take into account. I didn’t consider the culture and the climate of the island to be as impacting as they were: the heat, the Dominican concept of time (very contrary to my German upbringing!), the water crisis, the daily cold showers, the corruption and poverty, the young mothers, the food and cuisine, the sense of community, the role religion plays in society, the cat calling, the street talk, the incredible selfless willingness to help others...everything! Everything was new and completely took me by surprise so that my first two weeks I felt like I was immediately thrown into cold water and was told to swim.


All of this sounds strange and perhaps frightening, and although it really was in the beginning, I
came to enjoy the island culture and mentality very much. I often missed my German structure and
“Ordnung”, but I also wouldn`t trade the warm sense of community that I experienced nearly daily living with my host family for anything. Everyone is everyone`s child, parent, friend. Everyone cares about everyone, everyone shares everything. It is something I wish colder climate countries, for example my home country Germany, could learn from and adapt to.

To those who have any experience working with children in learning environments and have an
interest in working outside of a developed country, I can highly advise this or a similar internship! It has been more than three months since I left the DR and I still talk about my experiences there on a weekly basis to family and friends. It has completely changed my perspective on education policy, my sense of time and community and stance on material consumption. Oh, and I improved my Spanish as well, which was initially my primary goal but I learned so many new things along the way!

Thank you to everyone working at Futuro for an amazing summer experience, thank you to my
intern friends for every inside joke and every smile, thank you to Melanie personally for every hand drawn map and every ever so little piece of advice that made navigating the island culture easier, thank you for everything! ¡Muchas muchas gracias!