Summer Art Experience In The Dominican Republic
Traveling with a Cultural Consciousness
Aims and Objectives | Who we are
Visual culture - The Many Faces of the Dominican
Carpe Diem is excited to expand our offerings to include a summer program in the Dominican Republic. While all of our programs focus on experiential education, Global Arts Education is a new short-course offering that focuses exclusively on students interested in creative arts and culture. This program is for students that are looking for a rich opportunity to learn, apply, share and build upon their artistic talents through cultural exchange.
Global Arts Education challenges every student to gain global awareness with a focus on art. Students will create positive change in the world by putting their artistic skills and creativity to work confronting issues of health, sustainability of artisans, peace studies and activism, and environmental conservation. Global Arts Education empowers students to contribute to communities through art-related service by creating murals, jewelry and other forms of art alongside locals. Students gain unique insight into themselves and the people of the Dominican Republic as they live in artisan homestays and interact with locals in areas often not traveled by tourists. While the program focuses on art, we also engage in team leadership, outdoor adventure, and language studies.
Orientation:
You will begin your Dominican experience in the tropical mountains of Jarabacoa, the heart of the Dominican Republic — a great place to ease into the slow pace of island life. The first few days will be spent admiring jaw dropping views, exploring waterfalls and indulging in fresh fruits straight from the tree. Team-building games will help us get acquainted with one another, and you will brush up your Spanish with a collaborating Peace Corps Volunteer. As a group, we will push our comfort zones, develop cultural awareness and absorb our surroundings to prepare us for an unforgettable experience.
Week 1
San Victor Village Homestays and Art-Related Service Work:
In a small village just east of Santiago you will experience Dominican lifestyle with an artisan host family — one to two students per family. In this village you will exchange skills and techniques with a group of local painters. Together, you and the group will design and paint murals for schools and community buildings. Artists will be empowered to create a meaningful project from the start to finish. Recently, these artists have been exploring the basic and contemporary painting techniques with Peace Corps volunteers to expand their creative and financial opportunities. Putting our heads together, our mural will deliver an educational and motivational message that will reap invaluable rewards for artists and viewers alike. Throughout our explorations we will discuss art criticism, aesthetics, history, and lifestyle while reflecting upon our American culture.
After creating each day, you will return to your host family to enjoy siestas and the rich Dominican family life-style. Between days covered in paint, you will learn bachata and salsa dance. Your final day in the community will be a fun celebration of laughter, music and dancing.
Weeks 2
Northern Exposure:
After a rewarding volunteer experience and home-stay immersion, you will have the opportunity to visit Los Veintisiete Charcos del Rio Damajagua, a series of 27 waterfalls cascading down a gorgeous mountainside north of San Victor. You can slip down natural waterslides and jump into deep pools at the bottom of various falls.
Next, you will travel east to Veredicto to create jewelry with a women's group. Veredicto is dramatically dry, flat, and decorates the coast with a variety of beautiful plants. Here, you and the ladies will create unique jewelry designs using all natural materials. You can either take your creations home or donate them to support the women's group.
Free Travel
After a rewarding volunteer experience, immersion in local art, and team-building adventures, the group decides where to go next! You can choose to drop into the cultural commotion of Santo Domingo, the country's vibrant capital, or to travel overland to coastal beaches and National Parks. You’ll decide if you find yourself exploring museums and architecture along bustling city streets, or basking in the sun on white sand beaches, snorkeling the underwater world, crawling through caves with hidden springs. It’s in this week that you experience how to travel independently and safely in the developing world; one of Carpe Diem’s goals for all of its students.
Program Information
Program Dates:
Lo siento, this summer program is not currently running. Check back soon for updates. . !
Group Size:
A maximum of 14 Students & 2 Adult Leaders
Eligibility:
Minimum 16 years - Up
Language Requirement:
None, but Spanish will be helpful.
Admissions:
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until start date
Starting & Ending:
Miami, Florida. Our travel agent will price the most economical options and notify participants
Program Fee:
$3,300 Program fee includes all food, accommodations, and scheduled program activities for the duration of the program. International and domestic airfare, and spending money are not included. International airfare estimated at $390. For information on Financial Aid click here.
College Credit
Three credit hours are available through Portland State University. These may be transferred to other colleges and universities. Please refer to the Carpe Diem home page for more information.
Global Art Education: Aims and objectives
While being immersed within foreign cultures, students actively participate in analytical discussions about the culture and fine arts, and how they compare to American culture. Students visit museums, galleries and villages to explore an all around representation of visual culture. While students are sheltered in homestay village settings, they receive a unique and authentic experience as they contribute to the community through volunteer service.
Global Arts Education Aims to promote:
- Responsibility for social change
- Critical consumption of forms of expression and visual culture
- Imagination and responsiveness to creativity
As we travel with a cultural consciousness, the student will:
- Compare local modern art movements to those in America and discuss the differences in a group setting.
- Actively participate in group discussions that analyze and reflect upon artistic outlets found within each community.
- Create their own 2D and 3D art pieces influenced by native art styles including (but not limited to) jewelry-making, weaving, ceramics, painting and drawing.
- Study and utilize the language of the country in which they are immersed.
Global Art Education Field Staff: Who we are
Our program leaders are trained to facilitate personal growth and understanding of the visual world. The combination of hands-on learning as part of a structured academic art program has proven the best way to open the eyes of Global Arts students to different cultures of the developing world. Global Arts instructors are deeply dedicated educators, who empower students to engage in cross-cultural experiences, and meaningful personal reflection and growth. Our instructors are graduate students, former Peace Corps Volunteers, veteran guides and teachers by trade. Program leaders guide students in their reading and understanding of visual culture, and challenge them to be more self-accountable and better team leaders. In addition to exploring the arts, students build the skills to safely travel independently around the world. Instructors work in pairs to accommodate all group dynamic needs.
Karen Rosenbloom
Karen grew up in a northwest suburb of Chicago Illinois. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Art Education with a concentration in Ceramics from Northern Illinois University. During the last years of her study, Karen created an art curriculum designed to open minds to other cultures and influence positive change. For this she was awarded a National Education Award from Golden Key National Honors Society. While pursuing her degree, Karen was a Trip Leader of The Outing Center of NIU, a High and Low Rope Facilitator, and a manager of a climbing gym in Warrenville, IL.
She is passionate about sharing the wonders of other cultures and adventurous experiences in the great outdoors. While in college, Karen earned a grant to perform a cultural art study in Thailand. The tsunami relief of 2004 gave her the unexpected opportunity to stay in Koh Phi Phi to help the Reservoir Dogs remove the stagnant water from the reservoir and create a new pool. Traveling throughout that country was one of her most influential experiences. It opened her mind to other ideas, ways of living, and taught her great meaning and the reward of service work. Soon after university, Karen explored her heritage in Israel and went to the Dominican Republic. While in the Dominican Republic, Karen helped instruct and construct a ceramic water filtration production now recognized as Agua Pure. Agua Pure is currently run by a local ceramicist in Moca, DR. This project helped Karen recognize the importance of empowering others to make positive change, and taught her how crucial teamwork is to efficiency.
Before Karen joined the Carpe Diem team, she taught art at the elementary level and instructed yoga at Northern Illinois University. Karen has been a Program Leader with Carpe Diem Education in four regions. Her previous programs were in East Africa, Central America, India and the South Pacific. All of her programs were met with rave reviews and heaps of student growth! Between Carpe Diem Programs, Karen is an avid rock climber, backpacker, and skier. She enjoys just about any outdoor activity and expressing herself through the arts.
Karen is thrilled about sharing worldly experiences with others while making a positive difference in others’ lives.
Amanda Rader
Though born and raised in Pennsylvania, Amanda’s sense of ‘home’ has extended across the globe. Her first international travel immersion was as a 6-week volunteer in rural Honduras, which set her life spiraling along new paths centered on questions of social justice and equality. Amanda’s Honduran journey led her to join the Peace Corps after completing her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Spanish from Franklin & Marshall College. The Peace Corps assigned Amanda to the Dominican Republic where she spent three years soaking up Dominican culture and collaborating in various projects to holistically address community health concerns.
Turning her sights to graduate school, Amanda applied for and was awarded a World Peace Fellowship from Rotary International. Through this fellowship program, in 2008 Amanda completed her MA in Peace & Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland in Australia. During the course of the fellowship, Amanda was also fortunate to study in Argentina and Brazil and intern with a progressive youth organization, Youth Action Nepal, which put on the first-ever Nepal Youth Social Forum in Kathmandu.
Following graduation, and after a brief stint living and teaching on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, Amanda accepted a leader position with Carpe Diem. Over the past two and a half years, Amanda co-led five semester programs with Carpe Diem, including trips to Central and South America, South East Asia, India and the South Pacific. In the summer of 2009, Amanda was able to extend her stay in Central America and travel back to her Peace Corps community in the Dominican Republic where she renewed her passion for the Caribbean country and the people and vibrant life it contains.
Amanda continues to deepen into a passion for peace work through insights gained on intense journeys across cultural ‘boundaries.’ Amanda’s work in experiential education has gifted her with countless inspiring testimonies of students “falling in love with life,” and she holds a profound belief in the potential of such motivated youth to positively transform our world.
