Lighthouse Projects - Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic, International Teams supports and partners with the Lighthouse Projects. Lighthouse Projects which work in the communities of Los Alcarrizos and Villa Altagracia and facilitates a plethora of programs. The main program is the Lighthouse School, which currently educates over 1000 students from preschool to grade 12 and includes breakfast feeding programs. The school is the only one in Los Alcarrizos that has a library, chemistry lab and computer lab and that provides daily chapel sessions for all the students. Additionally, the Lighthouse Projects runs vocational schools for young men and women that teach skills like electrical work and auto mechanic skills, marketing, massage therapy and beauty school.

The Lighthouse Projects has now expanded to the community of Villa Altagracia, a community which is in dire need of basic necessities of life and education. The local program leader of the Lighthouse Projects has dreams of replicating and growing the programming from Los Alcarrizos to Villa Altagracia. The Lighthouse team have begun building relationships with local pastors in the area of Villa Altagracia. The main project to start of transforming lives in Villa Altagarcia is the construction of the self-sustaining water purification system. This addresses the main need in the community: access to clean and affordable drinking water.. The water purification system is simultaneously a business venture for the local pastors in surrounding communities. The pastors have access the system site where they proceed to fill water bottles and sell the clean, bottled water to their communities. This allows the local pastors to have an income and for their communities to buy very affordable clean drinking water.

Moving forward, the future vision is to continue to expand programs to other villages in need of clean water, education, and vocational schooling. The goal is to come alongside and support local pastors and to spread the love of Jesus through providing basic needs to communities. Additionally, there is a changing demographic and need for the graduating youth to have a decent university program that allows them to continue their education and still provide for their families. There are dreams for satellite campuses for the K-12 school and vocational schools, as well as for launching a university.