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What is LIFO?

Living Instruments For Others (LIFO) is a volunteer group based in Miami, FL that travels annually to the poorest regions of the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Our mission since 1985 has been to help some of the poorest people improve their living conditions, and consequently, education and health.

Every year we raise funds for the purpose of constructing a community project (either an aqueduct or a school). Once a community is determined to have a need for a LIFO project, we travel to the country and purchase all the materials while preparing ourselves for another adventure.   LIFO offers them the opportunity to improve their community by providing funds to purchase supplies while they provide much of the manual labor.

The communities we typically visit in the Dominican Republic are located in the mountainous region close to the border with Haiti and each consist of about 300 residents. These people own the poorest land in the country and tend to grow what they can (mainly coffee and beans).

LIFO offers them the opportunity to improve their community by providing funds to purchase supplies ($20,000 is more than they can ever dream of gathering) while they provide much of the manual labor. Our success depends on a well orchestrated effort to organize and motivate the local resident to work for the project and their betterment. What we want to do is to motivate the local residents into taking pride and ownership of their project. It is fascinating to see how they are vitalized by our joint actions and how the community is transformed in just two weeks. LIFO missionaries, on the other hand, are for the most part students and professionals. On the trip, however, we do the manual labor alongside the locals, participating in every aspect of the construction of the project including everything from carrying the tubes for an aqueduct, to digging a latrine for sanitation, to mixing cement with a shovel.

Historically our projects have been very successful. The communities visited in the past years have been transformed.  Children who used to spend most of their days fetching water at the river now have a running water source and can spend their time more productively in school and assisting their community with other chores.  In addition, the communities are revitalized with a new sense of self-worth and the knowledge that they are responsible for the betterment of their community.   Even though LIFO may not return to the same community on our next trip, we have left them a sense of teamwork and the knowledge that there are people who care about them.