Good Works in Panama
(panamalandforsale.blogspot.com) This week, The Boston Herald ran an inspiring story about Oylan Dong, a 17-year-old student in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the good works that she is doing in our adopted Panama…..
Dong began fulfilling a 20-hour community service requirement for high school graduation, and became passionate for Panama and its social development. Dong has made six trips to Panama within the last two years and has made incredible donations to the country of Panama.
Dong, assisted by a former US Embassy coordinator and both of her investment banking parents, has raised more than $35 thousand dollars in private donations to provide supplies for Casa Esperanza, a large children’s organization in Panama City, has helped to improve the infrastructure of the San Jose de Malambo – one of the largest orphanages in Panama, and has even purchased a home in the mountains outside Ciudad Del Nino, Panama for a family of seven that did not have a home prior to her help.
Dong’s work so inspired her, that she is now planning to focus on international affairs in college. She plans to return to Panama throughout her studies….click here to read the entire article.
Oylan Dong bought a cozy, two-bedroom home before even graduating from high school.
But the 17-year-old Dong, just now in her senior year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, doesn't plan to live there.
That's because the home, in the mountains outside Ciudad Del Niño in Panama, was built for a family of seven that Dong met during one of six treks she's made to the Central American country over the last two years.
During that stretch, Dong has raised more than $35,000 in private donations, used largely for improving the infrastructure of San Jose de Malambo, one of the largest orphanages in Panama, as well as purchasing desks, chairs, and other school supplies for Casa Esperanza, an organization that provides before- and after-school programs for poorer kids at nearly two dozen centers across the country.
"I had never seen a place like Panama City before," Dong recalled about her first trip, in 2006. "There are some really nice parts of the city, with huge skyscrapers going up everywhere, but the buildings all look right into the slums. You can see tiny houses in between huge homes, and it's really sad to see the rich live right on top of the poor."
What started as a way of fulfilling her 20-hour community service requirement for graduation has since grown into an experience that Dong plans to continue through college, where she will likely study international affairs.
Her first visit was split between relaxing with her parents, who accompanied her, and meeting with leaders from different organizations in Panama City to assess what she could do to help. Her father, Mitchell, is a longtime hedge fund manager who's now chief investment officer at Pythagoras Investment Management, and her mother, Robin, works as a private investment adviser. Oylan has been able to approach their colleagues, neighbors, and friends, fill them in on her work overseas, and get them to contribute to her cause.
"When we first got down there, she was a little scared and timid, as any 15-year-old would be when you walk into any sort of workroom or meeting with grownups," said Edward Rocha, a family friend who met up with them on that first Panama trip while he tended to his own undergraduate work for Harvard. "By the end of the week, she was running her own meetings and doing her own thing, and she came back from the trip excited and eager to help out as much as she possibly could."
Walleska Grajales Wagner, a former coordinator for the US Embassy in Panama who helped Dong set up some of her projects, said in an interview that she couldn't recall any other high school student undertaking such an effort in the country.
"She was so young and she had such initiative," Wagner said. "It really made me wonder what I could do so that my children would be like her and care as much as she does about people in Panama that she's never even met before."
Less than a year after the family of seven moved into their new house in the mountains, Dong said she returned and noticed a marked improvement in their frame of mind. She plans to return to Panama in December to help paint the house with a few friends from school.
"The children are completely different now," she said. "The first time I had visited them, they weren't very friendly, and when we left, one of the little boys was already throwing rocks at our car. But when I came back, the children were playing in the trees and they all seemed really happy."
When she isn't busy getting her passport stamped, Dong has excelled at lacrosse. She serves as captain of her high school varsity team, and she has played in the US Lacrosse Women's Division National Tournament for the past two years.
The changes in latitudes during her most recent visit to Central America even helped her prepare for the upcoming season.
"It's really muggy in Panama, and I had to go running before I went to lacrosse camp so I'd stay in shape when I got back," she said. "Now it's been easier to breathe."
