Learn Spanish and watersports vacation, Dominican Republic

Environment

The awareness of nature preservation and recycling is just starting in the Dominican Republic and as such the infrastructure needed is still by and large missing. Nevertheless, we try to limit our consumption of energy by using fans instead of air-conditioning and making sure that when air-conditioning is in use, it is for essential use only. We turn off all lights when not required. We attempt to limit the waste of paper in the office by only printing what is absolutely necessary, and by using refills for ink and other items where possible. During group excursions and activities we use public transportation and private taxis rather than maintaining a school vehicle, and we remind our students that when we are out in the countryside or in national parks, they must take all of their waste materials with them to dispose of responsibly. On our scuba diving trips, we make sure that our students understand the fragility of the underwater environment and ask them to respect this by not taking any ‘souvenirs’ from the reef.

Community

We support a local initiative called TURISOPP which is developing at present directly with the people of the 9 local communities of the Province of Puerto Plata. The initiative is focusing on how they can better promote their local identity, and how to develop interesting new products for national and international tourists, thereby creating new job opportunities, especially for the local youth.

Within this initiative, we also sponsor the Gastronomic Festival in Sosua which is aimed at the multicultural community of Sosua with the idea of promoting intercultural exchange on behalf of the development of sustainable tourism in the town.

Sustainability and development through networking: within our study abroad programmes, we encourage our Spanish students to connect with locals and local NGO’s which we support. For students who are interested in making donations to support the local economy, we encourage them to source necessary items here in the country if available.

We motivate our students to use public transportation when traveling in or in between cities and we encourage them to buy local products in the small and medium sized local companies.

We promote the educational language training of local Dominicans and teach German and English to Dominicans and Haitians. It also serves as intercultural training for our Spanish students from abroad and our German/English speaking students.