LLL of Dominican Republic was founded in 1990.

Priscilla Stothers and Yanet Olivares (Pioneers) ~ 1990 was the year Liga de La Leche, R.D. was born, and for good measure, birthed by two mothers!

Priscilla Stothers, a nurse and health educator from FLorida, USA, moved to the Dominican Republic (DR) with her young family in 1983. Over the next few years, her three healthy, breastfed babies were living proof of the goodness of mother’s milk and she often found herself sharing “breastfeeding tips” with Dominican moms. Though traditionally the DR had enjoyed a pro-breastfeeding culture for generations, it was now being bombarded with breastfeeding mis-information by medical personnel and the community at large.

Priscilla contacted LLLI for breastfeeding materials in Spanish and became a “Breastfeeding Resource Center,” giving talks in hospiitals and in a childbirth education center as well as supporting moms individually. Encouraged by Judy Canahuati (Honduras) and MaryAnne Stone-Jimenez (Guatemala), she completed the process, long distance, snail-mail, to become, in 1990, the first LLL Leader in the Dominican Republic.

Yanet Olivares first attended LLL meetings in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico (PR), where her son Miguel was born in 1990. Before she returned to her own country, the Dominican Republic, the PR Group Leader, Gretchen Rivera de Cummings, invited her to become an LLL Leader. Gretchen was often contacted by the mothers from the DR because her Group was geographically the closest one and her contact information was the one the LLL office provided.

As soon as Yanet moved back home, she started LLL meetings in a depressed urban neighborhood of Santiago, DR. By the end of the first series meetings, she was surprised to receive a phone call from Priscilla, who had discovered, while attending a LLL Latin America Conference in Guatemala, that there was a second LLL Leader in the DR!

From its inception, LLL RD had a two-prong vision: first, to provide support and information in the monthly, traditional mother-to-mother meetings where women are mentored and go on to become LLL Leaders and strong supporters of LLL RD, and secondly, to provide breastfeeding education to the community at large through regular radio and television programs, breastfeeding education in the public hospital and peer counselor training.