20 May, 2013
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic. – The Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) received this past week high praises from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to Margie Bauer, the agency’s Attaché for the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica, “BRA executed a US $2 million agricultural community development project using USDA Food for Progress funding. BRA is one of the best partners our office has had in the Dominican Republic and one of the best development NGO I’ve seen in my 25 + years working in developing countries with the U.S. government.”
Under a FY09 USDA-Food for Progress program, BRA executed a two-year agricultural cooperative project to create food security and economic self-sufficiency for 35,000 people, including farmers living in extreme poverty inside seven sugarcane plantations rural “batey” communities in the province of Monte Plata. “In particular, I was impressed with their success in a sustainable community led rural development project in the poorest of the poor communities in the Dominican Republic, covering all rural issues such as health, water/sanitations, education and agriculture,” added Ms. Bauer.
Ms. Bauer also acknowledged the organization’s ability to secure and incorporate funding from different sources to build an all-encompassing community program. Since 1997, BRA secured US $80 million to develop various programs in preventive health and HIV/AIDS treatment, food security and agriculture, water/sanitations, education, microcredit, women empowerment and disaster relief servicing more than 100,000 people annually in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and now in Peru.
While the USDA funding ended in 2011 with the successful completion of the project, BRA expanded agricultural activities into other farming communities through a new partnership with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Ms. Bauer reflected, “Not only does BRA maintain impeccable accounting under the different and complex USG requirements, it also possess the unusual willingness to learn from and partner with other NGO which resulted in more effective projects.”
“Their spirit, enthusiasm and passion for what they do, flow out from them and into all who work with them,” concluded Ms. Bauer.
The Batey Relief Alliance, a New York-based non-profit organization, is member of the Clinton Global Initiative and Global Health Council and is associated with the UN Department of Public Information Section.
For more information, visit BRA’s website and donate online at www.bateyrelief.org. For regular updates, follow/like on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Batey.Relief.Alliance) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/bateyrelief).
