11 January, 2007
October 23, 2006
Dear friend,
Since our founding in 1997, the Batey Relief Alliance—BRA has invested grants from private foundations, contributions from organizations and generous gifts from people like you to deliver critical humanitarian health care and essential medicines to children and families severely affected by poverty, disease and hunger in the Caribbean—principally to Haitian migrant sugar cane cutters and immigrants and their descendants, and Dominicans living in the bateyes and rural/urban communities of the Dominican Republic.
Starting October 23, 2006, we will be starting a yearlong celebration of the Batey Relief Alliance’s 10th year anniversary on October 23, 2007. And as I reflect on what we have accomplished in the past nine years, I cannot help but to be proud of all we have achieved as an institution.
Because of generous friends like you, from 1997-2006, in just nine years, we installed two modern medical facilities inside the bateyes, ran fourteen preventive health and education projects, served and touched the lives of more than 300,000, and invested close to US$40 million to support our humanitarian work. Let me share with you some of our other outstanding accomplishments:
o We installed a new medical center inside Batey Cinco Casas: “…It is the first time in the history of the sugar cane plantations industry in the Dominican Republic, since its foundation in 1517, that a modern medical facility has been build inside a batey.” Dominican newspaper HOY, Section Vivir C, June 5, 2006.
o We developed the first comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention and mother-to-child-vertical transmission program delivering antiretroviral treatment—ARV to AIDS sufferers inside Batey Cinco Casas. Science Magazine’s August 2006 Issue mentioned the BRA’s program as one of the most innovative in the Dominican Republic.
Since our intervention inside the bateyes, the marginalized population’s socio-economic conditions have improved dramatically: health care is freely accessible to all regardless of race, sex, religion, national origin or social status; essential medicines are affordable regardless of money; rates of diseases and mortality are reduced; AIDS sufferers are living longer with ARV treatment; lives are being saved; a sense of self-worth is elevated; and productivity is on the rise again.
BRA’s work has also attracted the involvement of many internationally, including high profile personalities like Dominican-born former baseball Manager of the Kansas City Royals Tony Peña, former U.S President Bill Clinton, etc. On September 10, 2005, generous musicians from the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras and the Boromeo String Quarter gathered in Philadelphia for a concert to benefit our efforts where President Clinton offered the following remarks, “…The Batey Relief Alliance is doing important and difficult work. They need our continued support.”
We are grateful for the ongoing support we have received from generous friends like you to make these accomplishments possible. While together we have made great impacts on the lives of so many, unfortunately, hundreds of children are still dying of preventable diseases, diarrhea, malnutrition, etc.; AIDS continues to wipe out entire families; and women still lack access to effective reproductive health care.
The next ten years are critical for the Batey Relief Alliance’s future and the people that we serve. We need your continued support to continue delivering quality services to even more children and families in need in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A recent survey conducted by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health studying the Batey Relief Alliance’s health services in the province of Monte Plata showed that people are coming from all over to receive care at the BRA’s new medical center. But we can only maintain those quality services with your support.
Your gift of $250, $500, $1000, or more is critically needed to help carry out the many life-saving projects we undertake in HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Primary Care, Blindness Prevention, Domestic Violence, Water/Sanitation, Preventive Health Education, Disaster Relief, Child Care and Development, Hunger Prevention, etc.
Please make your tax-deductible check payable to Batey Relief Alliance and mail to P.O. Box 300565, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230. You may also make securely your donation ONLINE.
I hope you will join us in the celebration of the Batey Relief Alliance’s 10th anniversary by sending in your gifts. Together we have saved thousands of lives. We can continue to save even more lives with your continued support.
Thank you so much.
Sincerely,
Ulrick Gaillard, J.D.
Founder and CEO
917.627.5026
P.S. Remember that if you need to learn more about the many ways you can help the Batey Relief Alliance, you can go directly to our newly-built website at www.bateyrelief.org, or drop us a note at bra@bkreative.net.
