Aiden's Dream: Support His Education

My nephew Aiden is an extremely creative teenager with an exciting take on life. His days are filled with music, illustrations and laughter. He’s been dreaming of and working hard towards becoming an animator ever since he was nine years old! He creates quirky characters, weaves hilarious stories, loves putting things into motion, and even composes original music for everything he does. The passion he invests in his projects makes everyone around him equally invested, and supportive of his dreams.

After years of speculation, Aiden has been recently diagnosed by a professional with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder), which requires weekly therapy and therefore creates greater financial constraints for his family.

Regrettably, due to unfortunate events in his family’s life, Aiden has been forced to move through several daycares and schools. He has endured rejection and constant bullying for being different–that is, until our family found his actual school: a place that welcomed him as he was. Where he found close friends with similar interests, and a wonderful staff invested in his academic and emotional growth. Additionally, unlike most schools in the Dominican Republic, his school has a single classroom with less than thirty students per level. This allows teachers to be aware of every student’s individual needs and greatly reduces distractibility in class.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Aiden moved in with his father again. Due to years of financial hardship, his father has depleted his resources to complete Aiden’s tuition. His father is currently paying loans taken to pay past tuition and can’t request more. On top of that, there’s the factor that Aiden is currently finishing his sophomore year, and many schools in the Dominican Republic do not accept new students after sophomore year. This is due to concerns regarding students’ potential behavior issues as the cause for the move, or concerns about how transfer students could potentially damage the school's overall gpa and therefore reputation, and or, an unwillingness to create a program with which to integrate students from different curriculums into their own. Sadly these are not mutually exclusive.

Although Aiden’s father has paid for half of this year’s tuition, there is the amount of $3,400 USD remaining to be paid. We please ask for your help in order to continue Aiden’s education.

If we happen to go over the goal, funds would go directly to cover part of next year’s tuition which sums up to $6,500.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.