Books, Films, and Online Resources

Looking to get acquainted with your soon-to-be host country? Check out the fully optional media below, recommended by our staff and pertaining in one way or another to your upcoming adventure. 

Hungry for more? Global Leadership Adventures offers optional Fellowships as a way to offer academically or creatively gifted students the opportunity to expand upon their GLA program with a curriculum that both highlights and recognizes their achievements. These self-guided, GLA-supported Fellowships invite students to step up and learn to be leaders in their field of interest. Check out more information here!

Study up on Spanish medical vocabulary and phrases in preparation of the medical campaigns you'll carry out on program!

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. This fictional work encapsulates Dominican-American history. 

In The Devil behind the Mirror, Steven Gregory provides a compelling and intimate account of the impact that transnational processes associated with globalization are having on the lives and livelihoods of people in the Dominican Republic. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the adjacent towns of Boca Chica and Andrés, Gregory's study deftly demonstrates how transnational flows of capital, culture, and people are mediated by contextually specific power relations, politics, and history. He explores such topics as the informal economy, the making of a telenova, sex tourism, and racism and discrimination against Haitians, who occupy the lowest rung on the Dominican economic ladder. 

Like two roosters in a fighting arena, Haiti and the Dominican Republic are encircled by barriers of geography and poverty. They co-inhabit the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, but their histories are as deeply divided as their cultures: one French-speaking and black, one Spanish-speaking and mulatto. Yet, despite their antagonism, the two countries share a national symbol in the rooster--and a fundamental activity and favorite sport in the cockfight. In this book, Michele Wucker asks: "If the symbols that dominate a culture accurately express a nation's character, what kind of a country draws so heavily on images of cockfighting and roosters, birds bred to be aggressive? What does it mean when not one but two countries that are neighbors choose these symbols? Why do the cocks fight, and why do humans watch and glorify them?"

dir. Mariano Barroso 

Based on the historical novel by Julia Alvarez, this film explores themes of sexism, poverty, and political oppression relating an account of the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. 


Sugar is a big part of Americans’ daily diet. But who harvests some of that sweet cane? This fascinating hour long podcast introduces listeners to the ripple effects created by the sugar industry in the DR and how it impacts the daily lives of those that live there.