From DREAM to Law School
I first went to the Dominican Republic (DR) as a sixteen-year-old high school student on a school service trip. Although I cannot say much about the long-term impact we had as a group of sixteen-year-olds, the impact that this trip had on me and my path was significant. Ultimately, this trip led me to a Fellowship with the DREAM Project and now onto law school. I hope this article might shed some light on the ways in which time at a non-profit can influence your path and some factors that led me to law school for anyone considering a similar path.
While an undergraduate, I ended up back in the DR working on a research project on access to education for undocumented students. As I interviewed dozens of families in the border region of the DR, I saw the ways that the legal system and limits on the access to documentation impacted such a range of individual rights, such as access to education.
This project first exposed me to the power of law, but, ultimately, it was my time with the LUCEROS Human Rights and Documentation Program at DREAM after my graduation that solidified my decision to go to law school. Through this program, I had the opportunity to work with Fray Peralta, who is a lawyer and the LUCEROS Coordinator, to manage documentation cases, partner with local schools, and build relationships with other NGOs throughout the country. Seeing the ways in which Fray was able to make a direct impact on families through legal services, while simultaneously being able to understand the broader legal system that impacted our clients, drew me to law school. I wanted to have a similar skill set: one that would allow me to work directly with families while also advocating for institutional change.
The impact of my time at DREAM on the way I now approach law school cannot be understated. After speaking with so many families and government officials in the DR, it is abundantly clear that legal advocacy alone is not enough. Relying on legal arguments that all children in the DR have the right to attend school, or have their birth registered, is not going to remove the financial, bureaucratic, and systemic barriers that often prevent the realization of these rights. Seeing the ways that DREAM approaches these problems, by providing the legal services while also running education programs and partnering with community and national leaders, has made me want to be the kind of lawyer that is able to combine legal advocacy with holistic support.
Since my first trip to the DR, my understanding of what development means has transformed immensely. This is due in no small part to my time at DREAM and the opportunity to learn from leaders, such as Fray and others. For anyone considering a similar path, I hope you have the opportunity to learn from similar changemakers and allow them to influence your journey. It is impossible to underestimate how doing so influenced mine.
About the Author: Nicole Waddick
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Nicole graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2019 with a degree in Political Science and International Development Studies. As a student, she spent two summers and a winter break in the northwest of the DR, developing a deep appreciation for the community she found in the DR and a passion for the rights to education and documentation. Her senior thesis research focused on access to education for undocumented students in the DR and allowed her the opportunity to travel to six provinces of the country to conduct interviews with undocumented families and school officials. Prior to coming to DREAM, she worked as a consultant for UNESCO, providing updated information on barriers to education for migrants and undocumented youth based on her 2018 research. Inspired by the talented individuals working on education and documentation in the DR that she had met thus far, she was thrilled to return to the country as a 2019-2020 Fellow in DREAM’s monitoring and evaluation and documentation programs. After the completion of her Fellowship in August of 2020, she started law school at U.C. Berkeley, where she hopes to continue working in international human rights work, with a focus on the rights to nationality and education.