SYLACAUGA — About 3 hours west of the capital of the Dominican Republic in the mountains of San Juan De la Maguana sits a small village with few paved roads. There is no health care and impoverished families struggle to give their children an education.A dream for these children to receive valuable schooling is being realized with help from staff members at Coosa Valley Medical Center. Instead of discarding computers no longer in use at the hospital, a group of doctors and nurses has worked to send almost 50 computers to a mission-sponsored school for students from first to 12th grades.
"These people are so needy," said Jim Jones, a Coosa Valley Medical Center nurse anesthetist who helped coordinate the donation. "To send someone a meal feeds them for a day, but to give a child a 12-year education and a skill will be with him all of his days."
The Christian Center for Education Development will soon receive 49 desktop computers to add to the dozen it already has for its two schools, which are run by the ministry organization Solid Rock Missions.
"There are many people that went through a lot of trouble to make this happen," Jones said. "I think we’re just following what God told people to do."
More than 90 percent of the funding for the school comes from gifts and donations or from a direct sponsorship of students. In the area, there are about 3,000 school age children. A large portion of them do not attend school, but now nearly 1,000 are enrolled at CCED through help from a sponsor who pays 72 cents a day to not only educate, but feed, clothe and provide medical care, Jones said.
With support from Coosa Valley Medical Center, the students will all have the opportunity to get computer technology training, along with core subject material and vocational skills.
Sending computers to the school is not the first contact hospital staff has made with the people of San Juan De la Maguana. Several trips have been made to the Dominican Republic to work at the Clinica Christiana de Salude Intregal medical clinic in the town, using donated medical supplies from the hospital for those with no hope of getting proper health care.
Last October, a team of 23 doctors, nurses and support staff made the trip to give medical care and do elective surgeries on those who could not afford it.
"It was an incredible experience," said Dr. Gene Gordon. "The people are so poor by any standards imaginable in this country. They have no free public health care and they can’t afford it. Their life expectancy is probably 25 years less because there is no routine preventative care."
With no paved roads, tin roofs and dirt floors in their homes, Gordon said the people are grateful for all assistance they receive because "there is really a different chance at life for the kids at this school."
