This article appeared in the Lucent Technologies Inc internal web in October 2003

'Transformational' Summer Vacation October 10, 2003

Memories of summer vacation still linger this time of the year, and some of the talk around the water cooler and lunch table might include questions like: What beach did you go to? How much golf or tennis did you get in? How much was the condo with the daily maid service? Ask Dave Dial, LWS VP of Business Development, and Michel Deschapelles, an LWS director, about their vacations and they'll tell you about a remote mountain village in the Dominican Republic with no running water, about its snakes and spiders, and about a little boy who cried and held onto Dial when they were leaving to go back home.

Dial says that in his years working at Lucent and AT&T, he's traveled to various parts of Latin America and has seen the poverty and hopelessness that rule many millions of lives. So when Deschapelles mentioned that he has been involved for the past 10 years with a Miami-based, non-profit group called LIFO Missions that helps people in some of the poverty-stricken areas in the Dominican Republic, it piqued Dial's curiosity. "It was a mission project that affected me personally as a result of my business experiences in the Latin America," Dial said. "Also I thought this would be an interesting life experience for my seventeen-year-old daughter, Lindsay, who is now a senior in high school. I wanted her to see what I had seen on my trips to the region."

The objective of such LIFO projects is to help remote communities by bringing materials that they could never afford and helping them organize themselves to build and finish a project that will change their lives. A typical village in the Dominican mountains has about 50 families and has no running water, no toilets, no electricity or paved roads, and shares its space with pythons, tarantulas and scorpions. Volunteers pay their own way and sleep in shacks, while LIFO raises funds to provide all building materials (about $15,000 in PVC pipes, cinder blocks, cement, etc).

After getting the lowdown on such a project, Dial still thought it would still be a great experience for his daughter - as well as for himself.

The goal of this past summer's ten-day trip -- which included Dial, his daughter, Deschapelles, his wife, and a dozen other people from LIFO -- was to bring water to the small village of El Henequen in the mountains above the city of Santiago by building an aqueduct. The aqueduct, in this case, would take the form of a pipe system that carried water from high mountain springs, down the mountain and over a polluted river that the villagers use as their water source, and back up the hills on the other side of the river directly into the village.  The higher elevation of the water source would enable gravity to make the system work.

Deschapelles explained, "A typical LIFO project begins with a village that is often skeptical about the LIFO group, and the feasibility of building such a dream project such as a running water system. Villagers are tired of hearing promises from local political candidates who just vanish after elections. Additionally, the work is extremely demanding, since one is carrying bundles of PVC pipes, cinder blocks and other materials up a very steep mountain. They ask themselves why would well-off Americans come do this?"

Yet the example of a bunch of volunteers doing manual labor from the first day suddenly began to rally the town. First the men would join the work, then children, then teenagers, then women. "I remember this one older lady - probably my mother's age -- carrying a cinderblock on her head. Over the course of a week, the local people took ownership of the project with great pride," Dial said. Eventually the whole town was working in sync and the effort gained enough momentum to lay and glue 500 pipes, and build a 400 cinder block water tank in 10 days.

Bringing water to a town can produce major changes in the lives of the inhabitants , Deschapelles added. "Once there is water in homes, children are no longer spending their days fetching water from the river below and can spend more time at school. This, in turn, creates a chain of events that can revitalize a village. Even village people who had moved to the city in search of better life but found crime and poverty rampant, suddenly trickle back to their families once they find out about the aqueduct."

Leading the Transformation

 "It was very special to be able to watch my daughter be challenged and grow from it" noted Dial. "At the beginning she was shy in meeting the LIFO group, the people from the village, and speaking Spanish. In time, she was able to demonstrate her own leadership and help move the project along." What Dial initially figured was going to be "a volunteer group performing a project in a third world village" actually turned into something much more. "It was a transformational life experience," Dial added. "I saw the transformation of a village, a group of volunteers, my daughter and myself. This was a special experience for me and one that I'll highly value for the rest of my life."

Lugging plastic pipes for a new aqueduct in a small village in the Dominican Republic, Dave Dial (left) and Michel Deschapelles help improve living conditions in the poorest regions of the country and Guatemala.

This article appeared in the Lucent Technologies Inc internal web in January 2005

Laying Pipe but not for Bandwidth

Dave Dial and Michel Deschapelles were sitting on the side of a mountain in the Dominican Republic as they waited for a missing part to complete an installation.

It wasn't networking gear that they were waiting for.

Two hours later, a local resident arrived, riding a donkey, with the missing part in hand -- a plastic pipe for a water aqueduct.

This wasn't a typical cable deployment for Dial, vice president, Cable Solutions and Managed Services, Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS), and Deschapelles, director, Cable Sales, LWS, both based in Whippany, N.J. They had traveled with 18 other volunteers from Living Instruments for Others

(LIFO) to help bring much-needed clean water to a tiny village in the mountains.

LIFO, based in Miami, has been organizing groups of volunteers to travel to the poorest regions of the Dominican Republic and Guatemala since 1985. The group's mission is to improve the living conditions, and consequently, the education and health of those most in need in these countries. LIFO contributes materials and helps organize the villagers during the trips.

The team spent 10 days living and working side-by-side with local villagers. "It's amazing how quickly carrying pipes and other equipment on your shoulder in the mid-day sun makes you forget about e-mail and work back home," said Deschapelles.

Dial pointed out that because of his and Deschapelles' volunteer activity, LIFO received some funds this year through the former Lucent Cares program, now incorporated into the new Lucent Connects Global Employee Volunteer Program, which supports team volunteer activities in communities around the world where Lucent employees and customers live and work. "Lucent's values are truly reflected here in the work that we are doing," he said. "I'm proud that Lucent supports us in this much-needed work."

By the end of their stay, Dial, Deschapelles and their fellow volunteers had put in place an aqueduct and built a cinderblock water storage tank, while forging many new friendships, including those with the approximately 50 families that make up the local community.

"I plan to come again next year," said Dial, who finished his second trip with LIFO.

And Deschapelles, who completed his 11th trip, said, "I always say that this is my last year, but come summer, I find myself drawn to this work."