🏄🏿‍♀️ Empower Young Dominican Women To Reach Their Full Potential

Our journey began in July 2009, when we deposited $1 in a bank account and pledged to invest in the girls, families, and community around us. We knew that investing in girls is the key to ending poverty, but we weren't sure exactly how to make those investments, how to keep girls in school, how to define empowerment, and how to convince families that their daughters and sisters should be the ultimate priority in their homes.

Within the first year, we learned that starting girls in the program at age 12 was too late. By 12, girls were already seen as women in the community, and we needed to start earlier. We were surprised to find that their mothers were often the biggest obstacles standing in the way of their success and that the whole family needed to be on board. We learned that just keeping them in school wasn't enough, and we needed to provide wraparound services that kept them happy, healthy, and safe.

Our program is designed to provide various forms of support to the girls and their families:

• Academic Enrichment: Scholarships, Tutoring, Vocational Training
• Experiential Learning: Field Trips, active learning classrooms
• Environmental Education and Activism: Environmental Stewardship, Environmental Sustainability Commitments
• Global Partnerships: Creating global awareness, collaborating with top learning institutions around the world, hosting events and guest speakers
• Safe Space: The Mariposa Center for Girls provides a safe space for girls, build homes for families as needed
• Arts and Culture Curriculum: Mural projects, curriculum and emphasis on mending Haiti-DR relations, creating books and songs
• Access to Health and Wellness Services and Education: Providing annual medical check-ups, health education classes, athletic and water sports lessons, mindfulness and meditation, healthy meals and snacks
• Promoting Global Awareness of the Girl Movement: Creating the Girls Museum and Visitor Center, Website, Social Media
• Social Enterprise: Allowing the organization to be self-sustaining and offering employment to women in the community through the Cabarete Guide, Cabarete Coffee, Upcycled Sails, and Altagracia Farm

Working with girls is both challenging and rewarding. We know that our investment in girls is closing the gap on generational poverty. We've seen with our own eyes how entire families are lifted out of poverty when girls are given the opportunity to reach their full potential. We've engaged thousands of dedicated volunteers, donors, educators, and partners along the way, and now is the time to build upon these relationships, create new ones, and share best practices. The Mariposa Project campus is the ideal place to do just that.

Join us, and be a part of the effort to unleash the power of young women and transform communities.