Happy Dolphins DR

I am committed to elevating the lives of underprivileged children of the north shore of the Dominican Republic through water sports, lifesaving certification, swimming training and ocean awareness. This will solve multiple problems: poverty, drownings and lack of education overall.

I was born and raised the DR. My parents come from the province of Puerto Plata and did their best to give me a good education. I was privileged to study in a US school, Boston University, where I graduated Magna Cum Laude in Mass Communications.

I then moved to Italy, where I worked in Apple Computer. Later I returned to my beloved island, and worked for the president for seven years.

All of this knowledge and experience has served me to focus my life mission on making changes in my community of Cabarete. I have lived here for eight years. It is a thriving blue community, living mainly from the ocean through water sports.

My goal is to make a difference in the youth by providing training in water safety, swimming and water sports. This way they will rise from poverty in a dignified way, while connecting with the ocean.

The most recognizable problem for the Dominican youth is poverty and lack of education, which results in a downward spiral of social and economic depression.

However, the deeper problem is an inherent disconnection with the ocean, so crucial to the livelihood of a blue island community. 

There are over 2000 children in the communities of Cabarete, Sosua and Puerto Plata; eight out of ten can't swim.  Often the father figure is missing, so mama tells the child that the ocean is dangerous, from fear of her child drowning. There are 20+ drownings yearly in our community.

Learning to swim empowers the child, giving him access to the wonderful playground that the ocean offers. We are a coastal community living off the ocean through water sports tourism, fishing, etc., yet many live with their backs to the ocean, often with no choice but to go into prostitution or jobs in the nightlife scene. 

Once a child learns to swim, he is empowered and his horizon of possibilities expands: he can make a respectful, passionate living as a water sports instructor or lifesaver,  become a leader and even an international champion. 

Plus, a connection with the ocean will promote ocean conservation.

Happy Dolphins programs tackle the core roots of the problem: training instructors in swimming, surfing and lifesaving, while raising ocean conservation consciousness in the community.    

Happy Dolphins initiatives target over 2000 underprivileged children of the north shore of the island; we offer our programs in conjunction to the five top foundations of the region: The Mariposa Foundation (creating leaders in girls), The DREAM Project, The Ocean Academy, The Dove Youth Center of Puerto Plata, and our closest partner, Inspire DR. Inspire DR works with over 70 boys of the community and has an aquatics program and olympic swimming pool which makes our project viable all year. Happy Dolphins brings lifesaving certification training programs which will make great impact on our community.

We have two projects in the making:

- Happy Dolphins Tower: this lifesaving and training tower will serve as a center for training lifesavers in open waters. It will be located in Encuentro Beach, 10 miles west of Cabarete. This will create new job opportunities for the youth, as there are hardly any lifesavers in an island country. The Happy Dolphins Tower will also serve as training center for surf and swimming coaches. 

- Certification for Lifesavers: 

We will establish online certification courses, as well as a face-to-face training in open water that is ready for implementation in the summer of this year.

We hope that once the Happy Dolphins tower is approved and built, Cabarete will be a rescue training hub. This will allow new coaches from around the world to travel to the Dominican Republic to participate in the program. 

At the same time, we will contribute to the transformation of this water sports destination as the safest spot in the region.