Duveuax's Photo Debut!

Go Escojo!!

Success!!
This past Saturday, March 7th, my Escojo group made me proud. They were up and at em’ early Saturday morning to get chairs in place, balloons blown up and snacks sliced for our big debut. We celebrated International Women’s Day with photography, a play, poetry and a song. My kids also educated the community about gender equality.
We kicked things off with a women’s rights song sang by the one and only former host mom, Melania! I didn’t understand much of it, but I did make out that if women don’t stand up for themselves, men will treat them like a tree stump (or something of the sort). She was a real crowd pleaser. Anabel and Julia explained the difference between sex and gender and then the drama. And oh, what a drama it was. The skit was basically about two families (one where gender equality was present in the household and one that was living under a machista father) The ending was slightly vague and it didn’t turn out exactly as we practiced, but I was proud of my kids because they put it together, practiced and the show had a moral to the story.
We also had the 1st ever (that I know of) photo gallery in Duveaux! It was awesome to have my kid]s photos up! They had taken pictures of people doing activities that contradict stereotypical gender roles in Dominican culture to demonstrate how our lives should not be limited to the gender roles we are placed in because of society’s influence.
They also took pictures of women who were important to them or the community and wrote about why. It was an amazing afternoon really, to have Dominican teenagers all gathered around to celebrate International Women’s Day, look at photos and perform.

This is a picture of a meeting we had to elect the president of the Junta de Vecinos. It was a total riot voting for people in the community to be electoral candidates of an organization solely based on their character. None of the candidates said anything prior to the vote. We all just raised our hands based on former knowledge. Everyone in the community essentially knows one another whether they want to or not because they have lived here their entire lives. I suppose 30 or so years watching someone’s life speaks louder than any 5 minute speech!