INAUGURATION OF THE NEW CULTURAL INTEGRATION CENTER
IN SABANA YEGUA (Dominican Republic)
In April the blessing and opening of the new Cultural
Integration Center of La Sagrada Familia parish in Sabana Yegua took place. This Center is located next to the chapel of
Los Cartones neighborhood. For several
years, the chapel itself has been the meeting spot for the Catholic community
of the neighborhood, which has a large immigrant Haitian population. Additionally, this small chapel was the
primary site where the entire parish welcomed the growing Haitian community of
Sabana Yegua. In the chapel the
parishioners have celebrated the Eucharist and have also shared God’s word
during the week. It has been used for
catechism lessons to the children and adults and to provide literacy classes
for both Haitians and Dominicans. We clearly needed a larger and more adequate
space than a chapel for all these activities.
Therefore, at the beginning of this year, and thanks to
generous donations from several friends and benefactors, we were able to
remodel and expand the chapel itself and build two classrooms and an office to
its side, with a bathroom and a back patio for larger meetings. This annex to the original chapel is what we
now call the Cultural Integration Center of Los Cartones.
Our idea is that the Center may be a welcoming meeting
point for the Haitian and Dominican communities. This will become, hopefully, a place where
worries and complaints that arise as a result of a coexistence that, as we all
know, isn’t always easy, can be dealt with and where as a result reconciliation
can be achieved.
In the Center Haitian Creole language classes will be
offered for the Dominicans interested in learning it. Furthermore, we reached an
agreement with INFOTEP (an educational institution of the Dominican Government)
to use the center’s classrooms to offer technical formation classes to
vulnerable groups (and again, both Dominican and Haitians will be learning
there together). We began with a basic
cooking class that started on May 25.
Let’s hope that this new Center will be a welcoming place
where formation for all those living in our region may increase and where, at
the same time, integration between peoples from different origins and ancestry
may flourish.
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