Home location in the Dominican Republic

On January 6, 2003 our NPH family in the Dominican Republic was born. We started with seven children in a rented home in San Pedro de Macoris. Our family grew quickly and we ended up having to rent six houses in the outskirts of San Pedro de Macoris to house our new Family.

San Pedro de Macoris is a big city with approximately 400,000 inhabitants, located 65km east of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Baseball is famous in San Pedro; it is the home of Sammy Sosa and other well known players. Dominicans call it “the city that has given the greatest players of the World Series”.

In the past, sugarcane was the basis of the economy in San Pedro; today many of the factories are closed, leaving the people who worked cutting the cane unemployed. Most of them live in bateyes, small villages on the outskirts of the city between the sugar plantations. They live in poor conditions, most without electricity or running water.

Aerial view of the home

The bishop of San Pedro de Macoris, Francisco Ozoria Acosta, donated on behalf of his diocese a piece of land of 25,000m2 to NPH. Later, an adjacent parcel of 87,500m2 was purchased on our behalf with funds from “Foundazione Francesca Rava”, NPH Italy. We also obtained the rights to use a third piece of land of 87,500m2 on lease from CEA (Consejo Estatal de Azúcar) close by. This gave us in total 200,000m2 of new home land to develop.

In September 2005 we were finally allowed to move with all of our children to our own home on our own property.

Today we live here with 198 children in 12 “family” homes. Thanks to the help and support of dedicated local construction workers, volunteers from Canada and Chicago and to both national and international donations, construction has continued over the years. We have two school buildings, a volunteer house, an office building, a church, a large central kitchen, a beautiful garden, a clinic, three visitor homes and four homes for staff. The property also includes various agricultural areas, a farm, a green house, playgrounds, a basketball court and our own baseball and soccer fields.