COTN who are they?

  Children of the Nations (COTN) is a Christian based, sponsorship and assistance charity that serves in many countries to provide medical, dental, educational, and basic needs for children. We will be staying near the "batays", which are shantytowns set up originally to house Haitian immigrants who came to work on the sugarcane plantations. Unfortunately, once the immigrants had children, the children were not considered Haitians any longer as they were born out of the country, but the DR does not welcome them either and gives them no citizenship. As a result, the batays have become communities that are impossible to escape, and are now multigenerational towns in rural areas without electricity, running water, employment, etc.
   COTN has come into these batays and built schools, medical/dental centers, and assists with basic needs through child sponsorships and donations as well. 
You can find more information here: https://cotni.org/where-we-serve/dominican-republic/barahona-dominican-republic/village-partnership-programs/los-roble

What will our team being doing in the DR?

It's still yet to be determined as to the specifics of what we will be doing in the DR. There are several different options. One option is to work with a special education teacher to help set up their classroom. Another option is to be involved with the COTN child sponsorship program (delivering letters to the children, helping children with their correspondence to their sponsors, taking updated photos of the children, etc). One opportunity we are certain of is that we will be collecting as many pairs of children's UNDERWEAR (boys & girls, all sizes, new in package) as we can. If you would like to donate underwear or would like to contribute money towards the purchase of underwear, let us know.