Pole Star Digital Helps Building Schools in the Dominican Republic

Altruism is something that has & always will be one of Pole Star Digital’s values, making efforts to support various charities that are close to our hearts in an ongoing basis. Some closer to home, and some further afield…

We came across Mission Direct, who help run projects in the Dominican Republic, and 12 other locations across the world, regularly facilitating volunteers to go and help projects on the ground. This lead to our attention recently being drawn towards the Dominican Republic, one of the places Mission Direct runs projects. While the Caribbean is well known to many as a luxurious holiday destination, away from the holiday complexes many of the local population live in far less luxurious conditions. In particular, they have a shortage of schools meaning that education for younger generations is hard to come by, & inconsistent at best. 

We learned that in the Dominican Republic the government provide differing levels of support, depending on the size of a given school. Simply put, the size determines whether or not the teachers get paid for teaching a half day, or a full day, and whether or not food will be provided for the students. This particular school required an additional classroom built, though they had been struggling for a long time to raise the amount required. Once they had this funded & built, they would be eligible for this government assistance, meaning they would be able to move from only being able to provide a half day of education, to providing a full day.  Moreover, this would enable them to provide food for the students of the school, an important point as is not only served to increase the attendance in class, but also would ensure that the young students had at least one square meal a day.

While a crowdfunding campaign had taken place, Mission Direct and the volunteers it had taken to work on the project, had fallen short of reaching their target & that the school would only be half built, until further funding was generated.

It was at this point that Ned Poulter (CEO & Founder) decided to rally round some of Pole Star Digital’s friends in the digital industry asking people to give what they can, in addition to significantly increasing the donation from Pole Star Digital to ensure that the project would be completed. The donation of £3,000, took the total to the beyond the target amount, ensuring that the project would be finished in its entirety, not only finishing the classroom, but also extending the building to include a kitchen from which the children would be served their meals.

You can see the stages of completion of the project below:

As well as the finished product! 😁