Mi Futuro Brillante

I recently got to participate in what was one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do here so far. It was a conference designed for girls that participate in the Chicas Brillantes initiative and that are also super motivated and dedicated to pursuing a career in their future. We spent 3 days in Santo Domingo (the capital) talking about future planning, goal making, and the dreams these girls have for their lives. The two highlights (and what I think made this conference so unique) were that the girls got to job shadow and interview a professional Dominican woman, and the Peace Corps Librarian took all the girls on a tour of the Public University in Santo Domingo.

As a backdrop, I think it’s important to understand that for a lot of these girls, they’ve never even left their home towns until getting to go to one of these conferences. So the fact that they got to stay in a hotel, dress professionally, spend time in real offices and go to a real university is a really big deal – and probably an opportunity they wouldn’t have had otherwise for a lot of them. You could see the dreams they had for their futures taking on a more realistic shape – they could actually visualize themselves going to college, working in an office – being successful, professional women. Very, very cool.

This is me with the 2 girls I brought to the conference: Criseyli on the left, and Lery on the right. Criseyli is 19 and is currently working in her mom’s colmado (kind of a local convenience store) and wants to go to the University an study to be a Pediatrician. Lery is 17 and a Junior in High School. When she graduates she wants to study to be a psychologist.

For our job shadow, we got to visit Julissa (seated, in the red shirt). She’s a psychologist for a local non-profit that works with street kids. Along with being a super smart, motivated lady, she is also funny, stylish, and sassy. Other girls at the conference got to visit all kinds of professionals: A gynecologist, engineers, an orthodontist, an office manager, etc. While everyone loved their visits I felt really lucky that my girls got spend time with someone so closely connected to their interests, and that was also so relatable. Julissa is only 25 years old, but has already been working for her organization for several years and is now working on her masters in family mediation.

At the metro station getting ready to visit the University.

Inside the giant, on campus library.

And just for funsies, a picture of the lovely peace corps ladies aprovechar-ing (taking advantage of) the pool. 🙂

My girls were really excited to have participated in this conference and are planning on giving a presentation to the rest of our Chicas group this Wednesday.