Dominican Republic Field Study

The Field Research Pro­gram in the Domini­can Repub­lic is built on the prin­ci­ples of rural micro-finance, vil­lage bank­ing and the Grameen Bank model of sol­i­dar­ity, spe­cific to rural “batey” com­mu­ni­ties of the Domini­can Repub­lic. The aca­d­e­mic por­tion of the pro­gram includes daily classes empha­siz­ing social entre­pre­neur­ship,  micro-finance and impact mea­sure­ment. Classes are sup­ple­mented with site vis­its to social busi­nesses through­out the coun­try, includ­ing micro-finance net­works, agri­cul­tural co-operatives and devel­op­ment organizations.

In the after­noon, stu­dents spend at least 3–5 hours “in the field” daily in batey com­mu­ni­ties where Hait­ian sugar plan­ta­tion work­ers live in rural farm lands of La Romana and San Pedro de Mar­co­lis. The pur­pose for this field exer­cise is to col­lect met­rics for Esper­anza Inter­na­tional, the University’s field part­ner in the Domini­can Repub­lic. Esper­anza is a lead­ing micro­fi­nance orga­ni­za­tion in the island of His­pan­iola and is an active Kiva field partner.

In this micro-consulting project, stu­dents design a qual­i­ta­tive or quan­ti­ta­tive met­ric tool to assist Esper­anza with mea­sur­ing social impact for the organization’s 18,000 active bor­row­ers with a loan port­fo­lio of approx­i­mately $20 mil­lion USD. Stu­dents also cre­ate a final pre­sen­ta­tion or deliv­er­able which includes rec­om­men­da­tions to man­age­ment for best prac­tices in the field of micro-finance. The fourth week of the pro­gram incor­po­rates a week of ser­vice learn­ing and addi­tional site vis­its to the neigh­bor­ing island of Cuba, where Esper­anza Inter­na­tional also has satel­lite lend­ing offices. The Field Research Pro­gram will com­pare the typol­ogy of micro­cre­dit in a tra­di­tional cap­i­tal­ist econ­omy in con­trast to Cuba’s social­ist econ­omy. Stu­dents will also be given the oppor­tu­nity to visit Esperanza’s part­ner­ships with pub­lic health clin­ics and programs.

Course Cred­its

You will receive 8 semes­ter hours of aca­d­e­mic credit for this program:

• ENTR3316: Micro-finance & Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment in Latin Amer­ica (4SH)
• ENTR3318: Busi­ness, Eco­nom­ics & His­tory of His­pan­iola and Latin Amer­ica  (4SH)

Cost of Program

$9,460 (full Sum­mer tuition for the 2011–2012 aca­d­e­mic year)

*Please note that the Social Enter­prise Insti­tute awards pri­vate, need based schol­ar­ships for stu­dents with cases of finan­cial hard­ship. Eli­gi­bil­ity will be deter­mined from the student’s finan­cial aid coun­selor and through a sep­a­rate appli­ca­tion process with the Social Enter­prise Institute.

Accom­mo­da­tion

Stu­dents will live in split their time in hotel accom­mo­da­tions in the cap­i­tal city of Santo Domingo and San­ti­ago. Accom­mo­da­tions are included in Sum­mer I tuition. Var­i­ous trav­els to dif­fer­ent parts of the island/Caribbean may include a change in hotel venue.

Appli­ca­tion Process

1. Com­plete the online Dia­logue of Civ­i­liza­tions application
2. Turn in two copies of your unof­fi­cial tran­script to OISP in 403 Richards Hall
3. All stu­dents must attend sup­ple­men­tal inter­views in addi­tion to the online application
4. Stu­dents may be asked for a fac­ulty reference
5. Please see OISP staff for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact studyabroad@neu.edu

To apply, please visit www.oisp.neu.edu (if before appli­ca­tion deadline)

Eli­gi­bil­ity

Please note this pro­gram is only open to sopho­mores or above with a min­i­mum 2.8 GPA. Excep­tions can be made for fresh­men appli­cants who have pre­vi­ously enrolled in a course with Pro­fes­sor Shaugh­nessy. Stu­dents who do not meet this require­ment but still wish to apply must con­tact SEI at sei@neu.edu 

Pref­er­ence is given to stu­dents who have com­pleted course­work with the fac­ulty leader though not required.

Dis­claimer

Some infor­ma­tion posted here is ten­ta­tive and sub­ject to change based on costs and dates of avail­able flights. The web­site is updated as cur­rent infor­ma­tion becomes available.