08 March, 2011
NEW YORK, March 8th. – The Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) joins others around the world to celebrate the International Women’s Day with activities planned by the organization in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. BRA’s CEO, Ulrick Gaillard is scheduled to travel to Haiti this Thursday to commemorate the occasion with dozens of women in Southeast border communes of Anse-a-Pitres, Grand Gosier and Thiotte.
In recent years, BRA has developed a variety of programs, training activities and employment opportunities aiming at raising the self-esteem of and empowering vulnerable and impoverished women living inside poverty-stricken Dominican’s bateyes and Haiti’s border communities. “It does not suffice to celebrate women once a year when they have to struggle everyday in order to survive,” said Maria Virtudes Berroa, BRA’s Executive Director.
According to Berroa, more than 70% of professionals working in the organization are women. In the bateyes, for example, women’s active participation as decision makers in BRA’s USDA-funded agricultural/cooperative development program is at 60 percent. The women are also provided with education on gender-based violence and legal rights and preventive health activities in cervical cancer, HIV/AIDS and family planning. Meanwhile in Haiti, 600 women in border communities have been organized, under USAID-funded Food Security and Women’s Empowerment programs around issues of preventive health and gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS and family planning, food security and financial/microcredit management to start new business and rebuild their quake-affected communities. “We must give these women the equal opportunity to better themselves and that’s our honest way to honor them,” concluded Berroa.
