<p>On co-op with a nonprofit microfinance organization in the Dominican Republic, third-year student Juan Pena Salas helped impoverished villagers start their own small businesses.</p><p>Venezuela-born Northeastern student Juan Pena Salas completed a Dialogue of Civilizations program in the Dominican Republic and then stayed for another five months, continuing his humanitarian work in an impoverished community.</p><p>He did the Dialogue through the Social Enterprise Institute, building a small, sustainable farm to help a village inch closer toward prosperity. "It was incredible seeing that kind of poverty," said Pena Salas, a third-year student studying accounting and global social entrepreneurship in the D'Amore-McKim School of Business. "I knew these people were poor, but I was not expecting anything like what we saw."</p><p>After the Dialogue ended, he found a co-op with Esperanza International, a nonprofit microfinance organization. He worked both in the field and at corporate headquarters, collaborating with loan officers, collecting important data, and using his accounting expertise to prepare the organization's annual financial report.</p><p><a href="http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2013/02/pena-salas/">Keep reading...</a></p>