14 December, 2011
MONTE PLATA, DR, December 14, 2011. – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) launched for the fifth consecutive year a Food Security Program by which, 243.88 metric tons of food will be distributed 25,600 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
This program, funded by USAID’s Food for Peace Office-IFRP, responds to the continuing efforts by both organizations to reduce malnutrition and the scarcity of food among the most vulnerable and impoverished urban slums and rural batey communities of the Dominican Republic and border villages in the Southeastern border regions of Haiti.
Sixteen other local partner government and non-governmental organizations will assist BRA in distributing 243.88 metric tons of dehydrated food, donated by the USAID. These foods will benefit internally displaced people affected by the earthquake of Haiti in January 2010. Other beneficiaries include pregnant women, orphaned/vulnerable children, adults and the elderly, and people affected by cholera and living with HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis.
The food distribution complements other important BRA programs that provide antiparasitic medicines and multivitamins to 62,000 children; deliver comprehensive healthcare and antiretroviral treatment to 550 people living with HIV/AIDS; support the development of agricultural cooperatives for 35,000 rural farmers and their families; and deliver skills training and microcredit to 150 Haitian women.
Before the earthquake of January 2010, the UN World Food Programme had classified Haiti as a food deficit country with a low-income population of approximately 2.4 million inhabitants. Currently, 24 percent of Haiti’s population suffers from chronic malnutrition. As in the case of the Dominican Republic, it is estimated that approximately 13 percent of children under five living in rural areas and 8 percent of those living in urban areas, suffer from chronic malnutrition. 27 percent of the population (or more than 2 million of the 8.9 million that make up the total population) suffers from conditions of malnutrition.
For more information about BRA or how to support its humanitarian work in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, please visit our website at www.bateyrelief.org.
