The Yinsa Foundation Update

Eight years of Yinsa has always meant body and mind, East and West, and ancient wisdom held next to evidence-based practice. This year, that same marriage extended somewhere new: the Yinsa Foundation, and our first Fellowship on the ground at FONICRIS, an orphanage in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

If you’ve been here a while, you know that my dream for DR was to build a school.  You may remember the toy drive we did for children in Caleta and Villa Hermosa in La Romana in 2022. Since then, we have been working behind the scenes to study programming for children in DR.  Homeschooling pods, international schools, public schools, Collegios, Polytechs, half-days, no school in the rain.  Everyday, we learn something new.

This past March, Yinsa sponsored a fundraiser for the Punta Cana Community Care Foundation. The goal was to share the proceeds with two organizations, FONICRIS -  a children’s orphanage in La Romana, and La Sistema, a music instruction enrichment program for underserved children all over the Dominican Republic.  What we found at FONICRIS, specifically, was a beautiful family of 96 children from all over the country who are fleeing circumstances that most of the Yinsa client base could never imagine.  When we decided to build a summer enrichment program as our first project for the Yinsa Foundation, we had no idea of the challenge that was in front of us.  

Five teachers from NYC have joined our mission;  Emmanuel, Jimmy, Vanezza, Anabel, Pamela, and I are spending this summer at FONICRIS running a program built around social-emotional learning, arts, and literacy, all centered on a single question: Who are you, and who are you becoming? It's the same question we ask inside Yinsa's own work, just handed to 96 children who've faced more instability by age ten than most of us face in a lifetime.

What we didn't expect to learn: FONICRIS used to run its own school on-site for every child there. When the facility could no longer afford to maintain it, that stopped. Today, only some of the 96 children are sponsored for private school, so the differences in literacy is concerning. That gap cannot be closed by the summer program alone, but Yinsa IS committed to closing that gap.

What else have we noticed?  FONICRIS is staffed by a committed and devoted set of directors, but they lack the social-emotional training necessary to hold space for children with this set of life experiences.  On-site teachers and staff need real training in trauma-informed care, not just good intentions. The older children want to learn English, so we are looking to start weekend English classes. Several children show signs of significant special needs but have never been formally evaluated, because evaluation is expensive and requires travel the institution. Basic things, like clothes that fit, shoes, a full backpack for the school year - these are not guaranteed. One library for the girls was recently donated, and it is genuinely extraordinary; the boys don't have one at all. The technology on-site is years out of date.

None of this replaces the summer program but it's what became visible the moment we actually showed up.

We're sharing all of it because the Yinsa Foundation wants you to see exactly where your support goes. Everytime you book a retreat, a coaching session, a reading - this is where your money is going. It’s not just about the story we started with, but it's the one we're living now. We don't just offer scholarships to adults who are healing from trauma, but we are serving children BEFORE their trauma becomes all consuming. 

If this is a mission you want to be part of, the most direct way is our GoFundMe. Whatever you can give goes toward sponsorship, teacher training, evaluations, supplies, and the basics these children deserve.

Eight years in, this is still the same belief we started with: The body keeps the story, and so does a childhood. We're honored to help write a better one, and grateful to build it with you.

With Gratitude,

Daniele