About Our Projects

Children of the Border is the umbrella organization supporting three different projects serving impoverished children of Haitian descent living in the southernmost border region between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It is lead by Sebastián Vélez and Sara Choi of Harvard University, and supported by a committed group of volunteers in Cambridge MA, California, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The Southern Border Human Rights Project defends the Human Rights of Dominican children of Haitian descent. It is completely supported by the Norwegian Humanist Association through its HAMU (Humanist Action for Human Rights) branch. This project supports the salaries of two local women, one Haitian and one Dominican, who work full-time to constantly monitor and document Human Rights violations in the farms and forests where they work as virtual slaves. Much of their work consists of helping local residents of Haitian descent fight for their rights, such as the right to a birth certificate for their children so that they can escape these conditions. Our two Human Rights Monitors assist with the necessary documentation, transportation, translation, and representation that are required in fighting the uphill battle for Haitian immigrant rights in the Dominican Republic.

The Borderlands Community Health Initiative was born out of necessity from the DR Schools project, and provides emergency medical aid to the people of the southern border communities so that they can survive to attend the schools that we struggle to keep up and running. We strive to provide transportation and to advocate for the rights of these marginalized people so they are attended at hospitals. The communities we serve live in extremely difficult conditions, and every day, people suffer from machete and knife wounds, painful work injuries, infectious diseases in acute stages, and severe burns. Pregnant women and infants are at especially high risk in the area, and many of our most severe emergency cases come from this vulnerable group. We take women in labor to the hospital for delivery, advocating for their admission and treatment, often against the wishes of discriminatory health personnel. Most recently, the project has allocated funding to help women in the region have control over their own reproductive futures, and we hope that this will help to reduce the large numbers of infant deaths that plague this severely underserved population.

The DR Schools Project is the educational component of Children of the Border. Through DR Schools, we repair schools, secure donated educational materials, and give support to teachers and students in communities serving Dominican children of Haitian descent. The project is supported by numerous small donations and the generous support of Prof. E.O. Wilson of Harvard, Mrs. Jean Schulz (wife of the late Charles Schulz, famous author and illustrator of “Peanuts”), the California High School organization Students Against Genocide, The Santa Rosa Letter Carrier’s Union, Ellington Hall in Santa Rosa, the students of Montgomery High School in California, and the American Humanist Association (click here to see the full list of donors).