On Saturday, October 26th, the community of Los Guineos de Miches officially inaugurated a new office for their homegrownecotourism project, “Kayak Limon”. Located about four hours east of the capital, Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, Kayak Limon offers guided excursions by kayak that take visitors across a freshwater lake, through a mangrove forrest and end on a picture-perfect Caribbean beach. The ecotourism project encourages residents to preserve and protect the local environment while providing a sustainable source of income for guides in the community. Over the summer, seven Social Entrepreneur Corps interns spent a week in Los Guineos working with the ecotourism guides to draft an annual budget that would help them better plan for future projects. In addition, interns made an angel investment that was combined with a generous grant from the University of Columbia to finance the production of promotional materials. These materials will be used to showcase the kayak tour to Dominican resorts and operators in the area. They were proudly on display throughout the inauguration.
To learn more about Kayak Limon, visit their website: http://kayaklimon.
About the Author: Dan Malin
After graduating from the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in 2009, Dan went on to work for nonprofit organizations in New York City and in Ecuador. He was leading service-learning trips in the Galapagos Islands when he learned that his Peace Corps application had finally gone through and they were sending him to the Dominican Republic. Dan spent two years serving as a Community Economic Development volunteer in a rural community east of Santo Domingo, where he taught business classes, managed an ecotourism project and helped a women's group to open their community restaurant. Fresh out of Peace Corps, Dan joined the Community Enterprise Solutions and Social Entrepreneur Corps team in November of 2012.
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