July 14, 2011

A Day of Panel Discussions Presented to Summer Institute Educators at FUNGLODE

On Thursday, July 14, 2001 InteRDom gathered 16 professionals and experts in a wide range of topics to present in three different panel discussion at Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) as part of the program for the PIER Summer Institute for Educators.

The three panels “Dominica Republic: Development and Environment,” “Contemporary Perspectives on Haiti,” and “The Internationalization of Caribbean Music” served to connect the colonial themes that the educators had been investigating earlier in the week with their resultant contemporary cultural aspects that shape modern Caribbean identity.  Educators had the opportunity to hear directly from important actors in modern Dominican society about education, human development, environmental issues, the impact of government in the country and the Dominican Republic’s foreign relations with Haiti and other countries.

It was a day saturated with information, and the topics presented generated much discussion among the educators and panelists alike.  The success of the panels is largely contributable to the quality of the presentations and the panelists themselves, who came not only representing important public, private and non-governmental organizations, but as professionals and specialists in their respective fields.

The panelists and moderator participating in the panel “Dominican Republic: Development and Environment,” the organizations they represented, and the topics on which they presented included:

• José Martinez Brito, FUNGLODE, the political history of the Dominican Republic
• Patricia Thorndike Suriel, The Mariposa Foundation, educational programs
• Katherine Cantrell, United States Embassy, cultural activities
• Dora Plavetic, USAID, environmental preservation and anti-corruption projects
• Gerald McElroy, Yspaniola, community development in bateyes
• Stervins Alexis, BRA Dominicana, environmental degradation

To read biographical material on the expert presenters in this panel, click here.

The panelists and moderator participating in the panel “Contemporary Perspectives on Haiti,” the organizations they represented, and the topics on which they presented included:

• José Luis Vásquez Miliano, Center of Research and Social Studies (CIES), border commerce
• Ambassador Julio Guillermo Ortega Tous, Ministry of Foreign Relations, history of Dominican-Haitian Relations, introduction to the Dominican-Haitian Mixed Bilateral Commission
• General Luis Antonio Luna Paulino, Civil Defense, post-earthquake rescue efforts
• Marc Van Wynsberghe, United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations contribution to the post-earthquake relief effort
• Virtudes Berroa, Batey Relief Alliance, public health projects on the border and in Haitian immigrant communities in the Dominican Republic
• Magda Mathurin, Department of Information, Analysis and Programming of the Presidency (DIAPE), new collaborative attitudes between the Dominican Republic and Haiti since the earthquake. To read biographical material on the expert presenters in this panel, click here.

The panelists and moderator participating in the panel “The Internationalization of Caribbean Music,” and the topics on which they presented included:

• Elsa Paulino
• Xiomara Fortuna
• Dario Tejeda
• Edis Sanchez

To read biographical material on the expert presenters in this panel, click here.

The day of panel discussions was just one of the events offered to educators at FUNGLODE during the week-long Summer Institute field trip.  On Saturday, July 16 participants received a tour of the renowned Juan Bosch Library and a presentation of the Fellows Program, two FUNGLODE resources that provide teachers, scholars, academics, students and researches with infinite tools to conduct profound investigations on Caribbean topics, both modern and historic.

The Summer Institute for Educators is a series of intensive professional development sessions that serve as a continuing educational training tool for in-service and pre-service K-12 and university-level teachers. It is sponsored by Programs in International Education Resources (PIER), The Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies at Yale (CLAIS), the MacMillan Center, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU (CLACS) and the U.S. Department of Education through a Title VI National Resource Center grant.

This program responds to InteRDom and Global Foundation for Democracy and Development’s objective to increase the quality and quantity of Caribbean topics being presented in international classrooms.  The initiative will also serve to fortify InteRDom and GFDD’s commitment to providing networking, exchange and development opportunities to the Dominican Diaspora, as many of the participants in the Summer Institute have expressed their desire to use topics in the field portion to better serve and relate to the Diaspora students that they teach.

The internship program, InteRDom, an initiative of Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and FUNGLODE, is the premier internship, research and academic study program in the Dominican Republic. It offers international students the opportunity to research important topics at the forefront of the United Nations agenda, obtain professional experience by interning with Dominican organizations and businesses related to their fields of study and/or earn academic credits by taking courses and seminars at a local university.

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