Breaking the Bubble

I live in the Dominican Republic, a small island in the Caribbean with a population of about 10 million people.  This island is only 48,670 km squared, yet at times it may seem like if it where more than a million miles that separate all of its citizens. This distance created by the economic gap, the not so fine line between the extremely rich, and the extremely poor. The higher class is isolated from the poorness around them, trapped inside a bubble that does not let see, or simply does not let them care, of the insufferable need outside of their tinted windows or fancy restaurants. But it is not just the rich who live inside this bubble, the poor also live isolated, blocked form the opportunities not available to them, blocked by the viscous cycle that only leads them to have poor children, and later poor grandchildren.

What many people fail to realize is that in order to break this gap, to fill the giant void that takes over the Dominican Republic, both bubbles, the rich and the poor must be popped. As a high school student, I don’t have the answer as to how exactly this must be done, but working with young girls in Batey Lecheria as part of Project Girl, I have learned that the first step to addressing this problem requires no further materials than knowledge, dedication and good communication.

For almost one year and a half now, I have been visting Batey Lecheria, with one main mission on my mind: empowering the girls from the community to rise above the cycle of poverty, to believe that they are worth achieving their goals. I have found that by opening their minds to ideas—like gender equality, standing up for themselves, independence, preventing teen pregnancy and building self confidence—they would never have considered these girls are already one step above their poverty, one step closer to breaking their bubble.