Community Travel
To experience directly what students were learning in the classroom, the Social Entrepreneurship community traveled to the Dominican Republic to see microcredit operations in action.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
The Social Entrepreneurship community visited the Dominican Republic over Fall break 2011 and 2012 to work with the nonprofit organization, Esperanza, which provides microcredit finance loans to predominantly women in the Dominican Republic. During the trip students:
- Gave a presentation to the microcredit and fundraising teams at Esperanza about "what motivates giving"
- Met and interacted with Esperanza loan officers and employees to understand microcredit finance
- Met and interacted with associates receiving microcredit loans from Esperanza; visit their businesses and communities
- Visited urban and rural communities and observed bank meetings
- Visited a "batey" community (sugar cane field community) and observed a bank meeting
- Attended a presentation and meet scholars from ADOPEM
- Met with students from the Institute of Technology of Santo Domingo (INTEC)
- Visited the National Botanical Gardens in Santo Domingo