24 October, 2009
Dear friends,
This year is my first message to you, asking on this important occasion to join members of our Boards of Directors, our staff, our partners, and me to celebrate the twelfth-year anniversary of our organization, The Batey Relief Alliance, created on October 23, 1997.
THE BATEY RELIEF ALLIANCE (BRA) was founded in the state of New York, United States of America, as a tax-exempt, non-profit, non-political, humanitarian aid organization addressing the socio-economic and health needs of children and their families severely affected by extreme poverty, disease and hunger in the United States and the Caribbean, principally in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. BRA’s mission serves all regardless of race, sex, creed, religion, national origin, socio-economic status or political affiliations.
This year, I would like to share with you two new beginnings for the BRA that we all should be proud of: expanding our services from comprehensive healthcare to agricultural development inside the bateyes and expanding our intervention from the bateyes to the border regions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Starting 2010, BRA will develop an agricultural cooperative where more than 7,000 unemployed farmers will be put to work 3,000 acres of fertile land in various batey communities to create food security and economic self-sufficiency for 35,000 people. This ambitious project is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.
In border communities of Anse-à-Pitres, Haiti and Pedernales, Dominican Republic where, as in the bateyes, the populations are isolated from most state support and live in extreme poverty, BRA has planted the seeds for a long-term bi-national healthcare and economic development intervention. We have mobilized new and current partners, including USAID, Vitamins Angels, Direct Relief International, United Natural Foods Inc., and Rotary International to expand our micronutrient/deworming and nutrition programs, build a new water purification center, and organize free dental and medical mission trips. We have also submitted proposals to develop a Women’s Economic Empowerment Program providing microcredit loans and training and improving financial stability for 600 women in Haiti. And soon, we hope to sign a partnership agreement with Haiti’s Ministry of Health to deliver improved and sustainable health services inside Anse-a-Pitres.
Expanding our mission from the bateyes to the border regions is a strategic necessity that implicates a new form of thinking and bona fide binational partnerships in order to address the dire need of people who are so different culturally and yet interconnected at a poverty level. This is just the first step toward bringing to the border the same socio-economic and health services that we already deliver inside in the bateyes. And our new agricultural program will provide the batey population with new economic tools they desperately need to better manage their lives in light of the current economic crisis affecting billions around the world.
As we take on these new endeavors, however, more funding will be needed. The generous support of donors like you has allowed us to strengthen our base even as we expand our horizons. Your continued support is essential to our continued success.
Happy Birthday Batey Relief Alliance!
Respectfully
Ulrick Gaillard, J.D.
Founder/CEO
