2008.06.19: June 19, 2008: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Oneida Dispatch: Mandee Galbraith served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic
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2008.06.19: June 19, 2008: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Oneida Dispatch: Mandee Galbraith served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic
Mandee Galbraith served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic
She spent her first two years in the Dominican Republic in a small village to the north, where she assisted teachers as a special education promoter, working with local elementary schools training the teachers to improve the level of education for all students. She helped teach them non-traditional teaching methods, as well as worked with a community group focused on special needs individuals within the community. "There wasn't anything else really established for them because there weren't any other things set up for those with special needs," Galbraith said. So one of the things she helped set up was an after school program for struggling students, as well as working with teachers on incorporating styles of teaching that addressed all learning types. "That was another opportunity to kind of incorporate a much different learning environment that wasn't like school," she said, explaining how the school system in her village was much more rigid and took a very traditional approach to teaching, giving students chalk boards and having them learn through rote.
Mandee Galbraith served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic
Sherrill woman returns from Peace Corps
By LEAH McDONALD, Dispatch Staff Writer
06/19/2008
SHERRILL - Coming home to Sherrill after spending three years in the Dominican Republic has Mandee Galbraith itching to do more of the same thing she's been doing in the Peace Corps.
"I think it was certainly very rewarding," said the 1993 Vernon-Verona-Sherrill graduate, who returned home from the Caribbean country this month. "I was getting a lot out of it; I learned a new language, I learned about a new culture. I think I got a more global perspective."
She wants to use what she learned during her Peace Corps experience in the Sherrill area, working with local Latino people and immigrants, or move closer to New York City and Washington D.C., where she lived when she decided to join the Corps in 2005.
"I was actually working at the Peace Corps office for just over a year," she said. During college, she'd studied abroad in Ireland and wanted to re-create that experience, particularly in a Spanish-speaking country.
"I decided I was ready for a big change and that's what I got," she said.
She spent her first two years in the Dominican Republic in a small village to the north, where she assisted teachers as a special education promoter, working with local elementary schools training the teachers to improve the level of education for all students. She helped teach them non-traditional teaching methods, as well as worked with a community group focused on special needs individuals within the community.
"There wasn't anything else really established for them because there weren't any other things set up for those with special needs," Galbraith said.
So one of the things she helped set up was an after school program for struggling students, as well as working with teachers on incorporating styles of teaching that addressed all learning types.
"That was another opportunity to kind of incorporate a much different learning environment that wasn't like school," she said, explaining how the school system in her village was much more rigid and took a very traditional approach to teaching, giving students chalk boards and having them learn through rote.
During her stay, she also set up a girls' leadership summer camp, set up a nutrition course for local women and took part on medical missions, translating for American doctors who came to the country and teaching them the culture so they could better attend to the locals.
After two years in the village, she moved to the capitol, Santo Domingo, where she worked in the Corps' main office for a year, training new members and helping set up ties to various villages that wanted to participate in the program. Each village that wants a Corps volunteer has to come up with a project it wants to work on, with an overarching goal that it will continue even after the volunteer leaves.
"The most important aspect of the Peace Corps is you're helping their project become sustainable on its own," Galbraith said. "The goal is for them to maintain it after you're gone."
Now she's come home better for the experience, but also missing the country she's spent the last three years in.
"It's just a tremendously vibrant country," she said, describing how music and dance were so important to the natives, or how they were laid back and took the time to really talk to their neighbors, or spend time with family. "The culture and the people are what made it so great. Everyone knows their neighbors; you can stop in any time. People have time to stop and chit-chat. I think that was one of the most drastic differences for me."
Galbraith was enthusiastic about her stay in the Caribbean and urges others to take a chance and join the Peace Corps, as well.
"It's not just for people right out of college," she said. "It's really a great thing to do at any part of your life. It was really, really rewarding and it was just a chance to grow personally and professionally."
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Headlines: June, 2008; Peace Corps Dominican Republic; Directory of Dominican Republic RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Dominican Republic RPCVs
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Story Source: Oneida Dispatch
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