Over 40 percent of the Dominican Republic lives below the poverty line. Poverty is especially crippling in the country since access to money is required to participate in schools and to access healthcare services. Thus the poorest people become trapped in a generational cycle of poverty.

Although the Dominican Republic is known to have higher levels of participation in the school system than some of its neighboring Latin American countries, 75 percent of students complete up to 4th grade and only 52 percent complete a full 8 years of elementary school. Students who complete high school in the DR enter university at a 6th-grade reading level.

This summer, HXP Builders will help build classrooms for a school that currently educates 230 students from 1st to 6th grade. All 230 students are placed into only four classrooms, accounting for about 60 students per classroom. With the current system, teachers have many students ranging in age and grade, making the school experience very broad.

HXP Builders will construct four extra classrooms, cutting the number of students per classroom in half. These classrooms will allow the school to distribute student rosters more evenly and improve the teacher-to-student ratios. This change will increase the quality of education for Dominican children.

Sources: UNICEF, CIA Factbook, borgenproject.org