Alternative Spring Break Dom. Rep., day 4: ‘Today was a great day’

While other students are looking forward to some rest and relaxation this spring break, close to 250 FIU students will be spending their time helping others. From March 13-22, the students are participating in FIU’s Alternative Spring Break, a program that gives them a chance to volunteer all over the world. One of FIU’s groups is in the Dominican Republic. You can follow their adventures in this blog. Today we hear from Karty Pierre-Philippe.

Today was a great day. Israel, Mandy’s brother-in-law, took us to his old job at a textile factory. This textile factory manufactures jeans and uniforms. It is one of 50 factories in Santo Domingo that are under the Free-Trade Agreement. These factories are offering jobs to almost 2200 people in the city.

We had a tour of the assembly line which takes place in three different buildings. The first building was just for cutting fabrics into either top (shirt, blouses, jackets, etc.) or bottom (pants and skirts) pieces.The second building put the pieces of clothing together on over a couple of 100 sewing machines. This was the busiest, fullest and hottest building. There were many different segments for different functions. For instance, there were was a section only to put on zippers, a section for just putting on pockets, and a section just for sewing together sleeves. The last building, was where all the finishing touches were done. This is where all the clothes were pressed, ironed, tagged and shipped. These clothes could be shipped out to either the USA, the Dominican Republic and other countries.

I was happy to learn that the textile factory had a gym and a Human Resource office. The HR manager explained that the employees were eligible to recieve health care benefits and training sessions for different areas of work. The HR manager also said that the factory was supported a lot by the government.

At the beginning of the tour I was concerned about the employees. I was expecting to see a sweat shop coordinated as a slave shop. But at the end of the tour I could see that the employees were grateful for their job. They also were very professional.