August 13, 2004: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Peace Corps: Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust in the Dominican Republic

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Dominican Republic: Peace Corps Dominican Republic : The Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic: August 13, 2004: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Peace Corps: Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust in the Dominican Republic

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-239-147.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.239.147) on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 7:21 pm: Edit Post

Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust in the Dominican Republic

Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust in the Dominican Republic

Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust in the Dominican Republic

Through the work of Peace Corps volunteer Justin Overdevest and regional and non-profit groups, new bridges of understanding and collaboration are being built over old rivers of distrust.

Capotille is a unique town in that it straddles the border of two countries, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Traditionally, a sense of tension has existed between Dominicans and Haitians over the border area.

Lately, that distrust has slowly turned to collaboration. For the past few years, Peace Corps/Dominican Republic has promoted cross-border collaboration between communities, along with Peace Corps/Haiti and USAID. By placing volunteers like Justin along both sides of the border and channeling small grants to those communities through their Anacaona Cross-border Initiative, the volunteers and other organizations have helped build cross culture alliances.


photo of Justin and students


Justin and his students hard at work.
Haiti is renowned for its proverbs. In light of the new relationships, Justin references the Creole saying "Piti, Piti Zwazo Fe Nich" (little by little the bird makes his nest) in recognition of the distance that the two neighboring border communities have come in recent years regarding cross-border collaboration and community development.

During Justin's two years as an agro-forestry volunteer in the Dominican village of La Penita Abajo, near Capotille, he has helped seven different groups make advances in bringing basic infrastructure, health and environmental conservation to the local communities.

As an example of the collaboration across borders, the National Forestry Service recently granted a permit for logging timber on the Dominican side and utilizing it in Capotille for a school that will be used to educate and feed over 120 students.

Another project, relating to animal husbandry, allowed for more than 70 men, women and youth to participate in a ten-week veterinary course in the care of sheep, goats and cows. Following the course, $2,500 in funding from USAID went towards the purchase of 20 animals. The animals will be raised according to the Heifer Project Model, and their first offspring will be granted to other members of the community.

Calling further on his resourcefulness, Justin helped find a solution to the high volume of wood being consumed as a result of high inflation. To save money, many people had stopped using natural gas for their cooking and had moved back to the old method of three rock fires that burn high amounts of wood. Justin taught the local people to build clay stoves that could be made almost totally with local materials, with the exception of a half of a sheet of zinc for the chimney. These stoves not only made for a more efficient way of burning wood which saves the environment, but they also provided chimneys, which limited the amount of smoke that the cook inhaled.

Throughout his service, Justin continued to search for ways to improve the health of the community on both sides of the border. On the Dominican Republic side, Justin raised more than $4,000 in donations from family and friends. The donations were used for the construction and reparation of 28 latrines to improve the health and sanitation of residents in the town of Capotille. On the Haitian side, Justin, a local Haitian organization, and the Rotary Club of Puerto Plata collaborated to bring bio-sand water filters from a Canadian organization, Hispaniola Children's Water Project, to families in Capotille to help reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease, which is one of the main causes of death for children in Haiti.

Within two weeks of the initial installation of a few water filters in Capotille, hundreds had come to see the filters and added their names to the list of interested customers. Currently, over 30 families come daily to filter their water. Within the coming months a hundred filters will be placed in the communities surrounding Capotille, 17 of them going to schools in the area which will ultimately benefit over 5,000 schoolchildren.

Justin, a native of Irvine, California, finished his service in the Dominican Republic in June 2004 and plans to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer again starting in September of 2004. During his second tour, Justin will serve in Peru.





When this story was prepared, here was the front page of PCOL magazine:

This Month's Issue: August 2004 This Month's Issue: August 2004
Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrates the Peace Corps Volunteer as one of the best faces America has ever projected in a speech to the Democratic Convention. The National Review disagreed and said that Heinz's celebration of the PCV was "truly offensive." What's your opinion and who can come up with the funniest caption for our Current Events Funny?

Exclusive: Director Vasquez speaks out in an op-ed published exclusively on the web by Peace Corps Online saying the Dayton Daily News' portrayal of Peace Corps "doesn't jibe with facts."

In other news, the NPCA makes the case for improving governance and explains the challenges facing the organization, RPCV Bob Shaconis says Peace Corps has been a "sacred cow", RPCV Shaun McNally picks up support for his Aug 10 primary and has a plan to win in Connecticut, and the movie "Open Water" based on the negligent deaths of two RPCVs in Australia opens August 6. Op-ed's by RPCVs: Cops of the World is not a good goal and Peace Corps must emphasize community development.


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Story Source: Peace Corps

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