Monthly Update

Well the last month has flown by like the rest of them. I suppose I can't expect time to slow down at this point. The youth conference I mentioned in the last entry happened last week and it was a tremendous success. We spent 3 days and 2 nights in Licey al Medio at the same center where I helped at the eye surgery mission 7 months ago. 28 kids came with 14 volunteers and everyone had a great time. The volunteers did a wonderful job planning the sessions which covered topics in both technical and instructional areas.

The kids were exposed to programs such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Windows Movie Maker, and Visual Studio while also learning about topics like general lab maintenance, class planning, promotion and fundraising tactics, and instructional techniques. The conference, titled "Encargados del Futuro" (something like "Caretakers of the Future," encargados being the word used by Dominicans for lab caretakers), aimed at educating motivated youth with the goal of enabling them to find work in computer labs around the country.

Two of my students and I presented on Dreamweaver and basic webpage creation and after an hour each attendee had completed a basic personal website with text, images, and links. My students loved the programming session and found they had a lot to learn about organizing and planning classes. By the end, none of the kids really wanted to go back home.

Aside from the conference, I've been spending time working on Peace Corps Dominican Republic's website. We should be making the official launch any day now. I hope it can become a good resource for volunteers and Americans in the States alike.

That's about it for the moment. Hope everyone is doing alright. Take it easy.

Peace, David