Carlys Volunteer Trip To Dominican

Hello my name is Carly Anderson, I'm currently a sophmore at Forest Hills Central. This past summer I had the amazing oppurtunity to travel to the Dominican Republic through an outstanding program called Global Leadership Adventures (GLA). It was truly life changing. I had fallen in love with this place and I would love to go back for a 21 day trip this summer. As a 15 year old, I did not realize how fortunate I am to be living in a developed country. The people there have so little yet there so happy.  I visited a couple different communities that were part Haitian. These people were considered stateless because they had come from across the border, the government doesn't give them any rights and they prohibit them from attending school or getting a job, pretty much not considered as humans. They really have nothing. I was holding this little kids hand, I thought it was sweet so I took out my phone to take a picture as I'm taking the picture I realize I'm wearing all Nike clothing while he was standing there naked with nothing. This was the biggest eyeopener of my life.
The people down there are struggling, and I'm going down there to make an impact. Some people volunteer and hand out food or just play with the kids, that is not what this trip is about. Instead of a temporary fix for a major lingering problem, this program creates a long term fix so the village can actually function on their own. Creating sustainable solutions for them is the goal. Some projects that I will be participating in on this trip would be constructing a bottle school, handing out clean water filters, participating in reforestation projects, analyzing how the climate change is effecting the water, meeting with locals and their efforts in helping with sustainablity. These are all things that will improve and save lives. While I'm there I will learn more about these topics and more about leadership, so when I come home I can apply that to my community here and help locally. 
Please help me make this lifechanging trip possible. Below are some pictures from my trip last year and a link to the description of the progam I will be attending. Also at the bottom is a video describing the goal of the program that our leader, Dave Addison, is trying to accomplish.
http://www.experiencegla.com/destinations/teen-programs-latin-america/dominican-republic/dominican-republic-building-sustainable-world/