By Antarah Chopra | Executive Assistant
At the Mariposa Center for Girls, every girl is an athlete with the potential to accomplish anything she wants. We know that participating in sports boost self-esteem, build supportive and uplifting communities, teach lifelong skills of resilience and determination, and allow girls to feel empowered in their own abilities.
Even though women’s sports are internationally on the rise, in the Dominican Republic, sports are still dominated by boys and men. Most girls who live in poverty do not even have money for school tuition, books, uniforms, and transportation, let alone to play on a sports team.
Nearly every neighborhood in the Dominican Republic has a baseball field which is filled at all hours by boys’ and mens’ teams who dream of going pro abroad. In fact, MLB teams collectively spend $90 million USD in the Dominican Republic every year in developing male sports talent. Hardly any resources, if any at all, are dedicated to empowering girls and women through sports.
At Mariposa, girls have the opportunity to participate in a plethora of sports from baseball, volleyball, gymnastics, tennis, biking and soccer to surfing, swimming, stand-up paddleboarding, and kite surfing.
Throughout the year at Mariposa, the girls participate in a summer camp that is full of sports both in and outside of the Center, play in Mariposa’s own Olympic Games with high school students from the United States, and explore their athletic interests and abilities by expert coaches and athletes.
If you visit Cabarete, you can see Mariposa girls dominating the surf waters in Encuentro, cheering their teammates on as they score a homerun at the baseball field, and giving each other high fives after learning a new skill in swimming–and most of the time, they’re all wearing skirts!
As pro-surfer Bethany Hamilton says, “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.”
Thank you to our incredible community for supporting all of our programs at the Mariposa Center for Girls, and especially those who believe in the power of women’s sports. For those who would like to support our summer camp, please consider making a donation today.
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By Jessica Lawson | Co-founder
By Jessica Lawson | Co-founder
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