The DREAM Project, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, began its current work in 2003. But their story and guiding philosophy go back over a decade to the founding of Iguana Mama, a small mountain bike and adventure tourism company that set the stage for what is now the DREAM Project

The owner of Iguana Mama, Tricia Thorndike Suriel, sold the company in 2002 and with a small group of visionary clients they created a nonprofit organization, the DREAM (Dominican Republic Education and Mentoring) Project, to undertake the next phase of their work. Tricia now serves as executive director of the DREAM Project. In 2003, the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo recognized her with the Distinguished American Citizen Award for her "tireless efforts on behalf of the Dominican people."

What sets Project Dream apart from other educational organizations is Theirbelief and our practice that involving the community in the schools and our volunteers in the community are the essential ingredients to insure a sustainable, lasting impact. We build schools with communities and we also bring volunteers to the communities; and we stay and we work with them until we have the trust of the community. They know us and we know them. We treat the children in our schools as children; we give them dignity because we believe in them and try to give them the same opportunities as our own children. By bringing together different cultures and nationalities, we contribute to a more peaceful world. By greatly improving educational opportunity, we offer the hope of a better quality of life for present and future generations of Dominican children.

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