18 July, 2013
Belladere, HAITI. – Since 2007, Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) partnered with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under a Food for Peace-International Food Relief Partnership program, to carry out a food distribution program to address food insecurity in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. With the financial assistance of $2.8 million, BRA distributed 806 metric tons of highly nutritional Breedlove Dehydrated food products to 410,000 direct and indirect nutritionally at-risk beneficiaries, including people living with HIV/AIDS, cholera patients, orphaned/vulnerable children, pregnant/lactating women, quake-affected internally displaced people and the elderly living in impoverished border regions and urban and rural communities, including the bateyes.
Between the months of June 2012 to June 2013, in partnership with Haiti-based Non-governmental organization, Partners in Health, BRA conducted food distributions within the most food insecure communities of Haiti’s Central Plateau regions.
The project aimed to distribute urgently needed food rations, in addition to basic medical care and education, to address nutritional and health needs of 12,800 highly vulnerable beneficiaries who live in extreme poverty, and often face additional burden of disease and the lack of healthcare services. The food distribution supplemented beneficiaries’ dietary habits with food products of high nutritional value and improving the frequency of access to health services—thus bettering health conditions and enabling them to perform better in income-generating activities.
BRA carried out nutritional intervention in 11 impoverished villages and rural communities in the Central Plateau regions, reaching 15,631 direct beneficiaries (3,603 vulnerable patients (pregnant women, elderly, and disabled persons), 5,355 orphans and vulnerable children, and 2,752 HIV/AIDS and TB patients, 3,921 hospital patients with other disease/ illness, and 21,284 of their immediate family members. In total 36,915 beneficiaries benefitted from the year’s project— far exceeding the set goal of 12,800 direct beneficiaries for this fiscal year who urgently require daily emergency food rations.
One of the beneficiaries, a 49-year old Haitian man named Axilien Maxo of the small village of Biazu, referred to the food for its nutritional and health values as “Mangé mirak” in Haitian Kreyol or the “Miracle food”.
In 2009, BRA secured $2 million from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a cooperative agricultural project producing crops and animals to create food security and financial stability for 35,000 farmers and their families living in the bateyes of the Dominican Republic.
