Older Compañeros News

2009 Compañeros Group Departs Soon
July 4, 2009

Eleven students, two teachers, and one alumnus-intern will board a plane early in the morning on July 16th, bound for the Dominican Republic as they begin a nearly month-long service experience. This summer marks the third Compañeros group in two years, following trips last summer and spring. Based upon the philosophical tenets of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps: International, (JVI), the program is designed to aid a village in need while providing Canisius students an extended, immersive experience of community living.

Four families in the tiny mountain village of Dojima will host the Canisius group as they work together to build a road bridge that will link it, along with four other isolated villages, to the main road. Currently, transportation is difficult and dangerous when the river floods, which it does for weeks at a time during the spring rainy season or for a matter of days during any heavy rains. The bridge will provide a reliable route for regular trade, supplies, school busses, and transport to hospitals and clinics in case of an emergency.

Last year’s summer project was a similar bridge in La Norita, approximately eight miles away from Dojima. It will be dedicated this summer as Puente David in memory of David O’Brien ’87, who died in 1998 at age 29 during his famine relief work in India.

A basic piece of infrastructure like a bridge is a stepping-stone to improvement and development for a rural village like Dojima, according to Paul Cumbo ’97, program director. “The government of poor countries like the D.R. generally doesn’t pay much attention to isolated villages, and certainly doesn't often make the $15-20k investment to build a road bridge leading to them.”

Cumbo went on to describe a case in point. “In 2003, Georgetown Prep, another Jesuit high school, constructed a bridge in a place called Chorro Bonito, a farming and ranching community very close to the Haitian border. A few months after the bridge was replaced, the government decided it was finally practical to run electricity to the village. They’d never had that before – which meant no refrigeration and no lights for those forty or fifty families. Not long after that, there were improvements to their gravity-driven aqueduct. Basic infrastructure like a bridge can overcome the economic and political inertia for the kind of basic services we take for granted. It’s also a matter of dignity. It puts these tiny villages on the map, makes transportation practical, and makes it that much more likely that people will attend school and get better education in the larger towns. It can be much more than a physical bridge.”

During the group’s 20-day stay in Dojima, they will live with host families, eat local food prepared by hired villagers, speak only Spanish, and experience the challenges of rural Dominican life: limited electricity, stream-fed water, long hours of work by hand, outhouses, wood-fired stoves, heat, and difficult, hilly terrain. They will also, however, have the enriching experience of a deeply rooted community united by hard work, good will, faith, and tremendous hospitality.  

After departing Dojima, the group will spend the final week working with the Haitian refugees on the north coast through the Crossroads mission center. There, they will learn about the plight of the poorest population in the Western Hemisphere while assisting with the construction of a free dental clinic, which will be staffed by volunteer doctors beginning this fall.

Rev. Fred Betti, SJ, Campus Minister, will preside at a commissioning ceremony and send-off liturgy at 5:00 pm in the Canisius High School Foyer the evening before the group’s departure, Wednesday, July 15th.  Family, friends, and supporters are invited to attend.

The 2009 Compañeros include: Zach Deibel ’10, Nolan Fenzl ’10, Dillon Insalaco ’10, Ian Kamery ’10, Brett Notarius ’10, Sean O’Neill ’10, John Reiser ’10, Tim Richards ’10, Andrew Sauvageau ’10, Jimmy Tatar ’10, Cameron Walsh ’10, Jacob Moy ’09, Mr. Chris Pitek ’00, and Mr. Paul Cumbo ’97. Joining the group for the final week and the Puente David dedication will be Mr. Rudel Simon, Mr. Adam Baber ’01, and Patrick Burns ’08, nephew of David O’Brien.

2008 Compañeros End-of-Year Summary

It has been just over a year since Mr. Kopas granted us the official “green light” to move forward with Compañeros at Canisius High School. In 2008, the program’s first year:
 
•    20 students, 2 alumni interns, and 3 teachers participated in two trips totaling 5-weeks in country, after a total of three preparatory retreats. They witnessed poverty in the developing world through solidarity and companionship with Dominican and Haitian refugee families. They studied a challenging curriculum focusing on Jesuit spirituality, self-knowledge, and social justice issues from a Catholic perspective. 

•    The house in El Papayo destroyed by a propane explosion was rebuilt and the family of five has moved in. 

•    A 70-foot long, 13-foot wide cement road bridge – Puente David, named in memory of David O’Brien ’87 – now spans the Rio Iguamo in La Norita, providing a vital connection to medical care, school, and supplies for more than 300 families during the rainy season.

•    The library media center in Villa Ascension is nearly completed, with Canisius and Georgetown Prep groups collaborating to contribute $7,000 and approximately 400 man-hours toward this important project through the Crossroads Mission, solidifying our relationship with this well-known Caribbean ministry.   

•    The two groups visited and provided humanitarian ministries including food, clothing, shoes and fellowship to Haitian refugees living in five bateys and two garbage dumps. 

•    Two alumni, Andrew Rogowski ’08 and Ethan Notarius ’08, initiated a shoe drive and collected more than 2,000 pairs of shoes for the refugees. 300 pairs were distributed in July; more will go in the future both to the DR and Nicaragua.

•    We established a working partnership with Creighton University’s ILAC (Institute for Latin
American Concern.) ILAC will provide us access to local business connections, health and safety resources including American medical teams in-country, and tax advantages on construction materials. 

•    Compañeros directly pumped more than $30,000 USD (over $1,000,000.00 RDS) into the local, rural Dominican economy through the purchase of building materials, food, supplies, and salaries for engineers and foremen. 

•    Generous donors provided more than $17,000 in cash gifts to fund the program in 2008 alone, with the remainder coming from the school’s service budget, our student-led fundraiser dress-down day, and tuition contributions.

Dominican Republic Bridge Project Dedicated to David O’Brien, CHS ‘87
By Adam Baber ‘01
July 24th, 2008

The second Compañeros international service trip for 2008 returned to Buffalo on July 21st after three weeks of work, reflection, and companionship in the Dominican Republic. Ten seniors and two alumni from the Class of 2008 joined Mr. Paul Cumbo '97 and Mr. Adam Baber '01 in the task of bridge building - in more ways than one.

The primary focus of the immersion experience was two weeks in the rural Dominican campo (village) of La Norita, located in the beautiful mountains south of the industrial city of Santiago. For years La Norita and other small villages had been annually cut off from other, nearby towns (and thus from schools, medical care, and food) by a rain-swollen river.  The Compañeros group, working with the residents of La Norita and other close-by campos, provided basic manual labor and financial support for the hiring of a local engineer and construction of the much-needed bridge. The bridge, named “Puente David”, has been named in memory of David O’Brien, CHS ’87, who died in 1998 at age 29 working for famine relief in India. Financial support for construction came from the O’Brien –Boyd law firm, the O’Brien family, and numerous alumni, friends, and parent supporters.

The job was difficult, with the group working alongside Dominican neighbors from sunrise to sunset daily. Estimates suggest the project required over 120 tons of concrete, stone, gravel, sand and water, all of which was mixed, passed, and poured by hand over 12 workdays. The students stayed with Dominican families in a close encounter with a culture and pace of life far different from our own, an experience full of challenges and opportunities, and, most importantly, with a people whose resilience, hospitality, and laughter in spite of deep poverty forced each compañero to reflect on his own life, sense of self, and future.

The final days of the project were spent working with Haitian refugee communities near the coastal city of Puerto Plata. Construction continued on a school library and learning center that will provide opportunities for the destitute children of Haitian refugees. Canisius collaborated with the Somos Amigos program at Georgetown Prep, matching funds to contribute to this important project. The experience of working with the poorest population in the Western Hemisphere raised critical questions about the fight against poverty and economic injustice in our time.
 
Compañeros International Service Program Takes Flight
By Paul Cumbo ‘97
March, 2008

IT WAS A CLEAR MORNING on a dusty road near the north coast of the Dominican Republic, below a cloudless Caribbean sky, that marked the beginning of the end for ten Canisius students. The end, that is, of ignorance, and perhaps a sort of innocence. It was on this morning that these young men, in the words so often used by the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, were, in a sense, “ruined for life.”

“Day seven was the last day of ignorance,” wrote Joe Harris ’08 in his post-trip reflection. “This was when we were exposed to the truth of poverty, to the real meaning of relativity. On our way to work we stopped at a batey (Haitian refugee village). As we walked deeper into the village, the realizations began to sink in. The open sewers, the overpowering smell of urine in the houses…the wall of ignorance began to be torn down by the children we saw. Poverty cannot be understood through the eyes of others. It must be experienced. It must be smelled, it must be seen…it must be touched. Poverty is raw and unforgiving. It knows no compassion. It leaves no room for the human being. It strips away human dignity…its essence is found in the eyes of starving children.”

This “last day of ignorance” came one week into this spring’s inaugural Compañeros service immersion program in the Dominican Republic. Based philosophically upon the Four Components central to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, the Companions Service Program (of which Compañeros constitutes the international branch) focuses on the themes of Community, Spirituality, Simple Living, and Justice. The program complements a similar one called Somos Amigos, which has seen faculty and students from Georgetown Prep, a brother Jesuit high school in Washington, D.C., traveling to the D.R. since 1989. I had the opportunity to direct Somos Amigos for three years while teaching at Prep, and approached the CHS administration in late 2006 with a proposal for Compañeros. Despite the logistical and financial challenges involved, the school’s leadership has backed the program with enthusiasm. Companions began with a two-week immersion along the Mexican border in Laredo, Texas last summer, along with two trips to Newburgh, New York to work with Habitat for Humanity. The result of the first international trip this spring was nothing short of, in their own words, “life changing” for ten Canisius students. Ten more are currently preparing for a longer three-week immersion this July. Canisius has dedicated a significant budget for the 2008-2009 Companions program, which will include not only Compañeros, but three domestic service opportunities for rising seniors to Laredo, Texas, Newburgh, New York, and Taos, New Mexico. The target age for these programs is juniors-becoming seniors, with the program situated to build upon the themes first explored on the Kairos junior retreat.

The seven seniors and three juniors for this spring’s trip were selected after a rigorous interview and application process last fall. They took evening Spanish classes and attended two retreats in preparation for their trip. To help reach the construction projects’ cost, they orchestrated a charity dress-down day at Canisius and Nardin, which netted more than $2,000, or about 25% of the spring construction budget. The Canisius group financed and provided manual labor for the rebuilding of a burned house in the rural mountain village of El Papayo, along with the partial construction of a library and community learning center for Crossroads, an ecumenical mission organization dedicated to the Haitian refugee community in the northern D.R. Funding for the program has come from the school, participant tuition, and generous parent and alumni donations.

It’s safe to say the program provides a healthy, but perhaps burdensome, dose of relativity, particularly concerning wealth and poverty. “I’ve learned a lot about myself and had my opinions about the world drastically changed,” wrote Adam Augustyn ’09. “Seeing and working alongside some of the poorest people in the world has made me more appreciative of everything I have and the circumstances I’m fortunate enough to be in. I can no longer take anything for granted.” Ethan Notarius ’08 continued: “There is much more to poverty than what we see on TV, or what we see when we drive through a bad part of town. Poverty is not just a lack of money or material items. Poverty is a lack of freedom, a lack of opportunity, and most of all, a lack of justice. There is nothing in this world that can justify a child living and walking around in a garbage dump completely barefoot, being exposed to used syringes, raw sewage, and sharp metal. These people have not chosen to live a life of poverty…they have no other option.”

A sense of mission – that is, a guiding philosophy and sense of purpose – is at the heart of Compañeros, but it shouldn’t be considered a “missionary” program. It’s more about learning than teaching, and I’d go so far as to say that our students and faculty likely take more than we can give to our Dominican hosts. On a very practical level, the program is aimed at the construction of infrastructure projects that benefit poor communities. These campos are remote farming villages in the mountains that receive little to no government funding for development. Many still lack running water and electricity, and schools are spread thinly in the outlying areas. Typical projects undertaken by Compañeros and other similar programs include gravity-driven aqueduct systems, road bridges, schools, and community centers.

It’s important to understand, from a philosophical level, that ownership of the projects is entirely local. The program provides funding and the group performs manual labor, but the design, supervision, and completion of the project is in the hands of the community it will benefit. This is purposeful, as it places responsibility and ownership at the community level, and really makes this a genuine “exchange” program. Working through a network of Jesuit contacts in the D.R., we identify campos with viable potential projects, work with a local liaison to select a community with significant need, and from there we hire a local foreman and engineer to plan, supervise, and direct the construction. We buy everything from local suppliers, from building materials to food for the group’s meals.

Construction aside, the real core of the program is cultural. Beginning with this July’s project, the students will be paired up and live with Dominican host families. While the spring group lived together in El Papayo’s two-room school building due to the short duration of the trip, their experience of community life was no less significant. Mike Dillon ’09 commented, “The Dominicans are some of the kindest people I have ever met. Hospitality here is muy alta. They won’t let us enter a room without offering us the only chairs and preparing a cup of coffee…their hospitality was great even when we could not understand each other…”

Though this spring’s pilot Compañeros trip marked my tenth to the Dominican Republic since 2002, I was affected anew by the experience, perhaps most remarkably by our own students’ changes. One certainly cannot “get used to” third world poverty, and walking dusty roads followed by hungry, barefoot children always shifts one’s perspective. I was honored to walk those roads again in the company of some dedicated colleagues and really good kids, kids whose own perspectives have permanently shifted as a result of this. Nick Sperrazza ’08 summed it up well: “As for the long term, I hope to go far with my education, through college and medical school. Using my talents in collaboration with those around me, I hope to practice medicine in a “ruined” way. I’ll take this experience wherever I go in life, sharing it with others, and continually reflecting on my time in the D.R.” According to John McHugh ’09, “The trip has taken my view of the world and flipped it upside and turned it inside out.”

That is the hope of the Companions program, along with the other local service and retreat initiatives that we undertake in the Campus Ministry office. As an alumnus and teacher, I’d like to think that’s what’s at the heart of Canisius High School and Jesuit education as a whole. Challenging our students – and also our faculty, administration, staff and families – to come to know themselves fully and to realize their own God-given potential to live life in the service of others…and the implicit call to do so. An international service program is just one approach to that, one that can only work alongside the many other sides of a well-rounded education. However, I think international travel is an especially effective means to a shift in perspective, particularly for a young person. It’s exciting to see the thought process emerging in these students. They’re thinking about how their education and their futures might be oriented toward serving others.

This past weekend saw the first preparatory retreat for the ten juniors who will travel to the D.R. this summer. We focused on community. We discussed the notion of companionship, and what that word implies, demands, and provides. We considered the upcoming project, the construction of a road bridge to the isolated village of La Norita. And we considered, among other things, the bridges that just might be built alongside the one made of concrete and stone.