18 April, 2006
The Overseas Child Sponsorship (OCS) is a program designed by the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) to provide concerned individuals with the opportunity to help improve basic living conditions for children affected by disease, poverty or hunger in the Caribbean. Jhensi Duran, in the picture, is only two years old and already underwent last year a life-saving open heart surgery. He and hundreds of other children need your help.
The children of the batey
More than 200,000 people of African descent languish inside the bateyes of the Dominican Republic in precarious conditions without access to adequate shelter, nutrition, sanitation facilities – electricity, running water, education or medical care. These rural communities known as bateyes are isolated sugar cane plantations labor enclaves set up to house Haitian migrant cane cutting workers. Today most of the Dominican Republic’s sugar mills have been closed leaving thousands unemployed and in horrific living conditions. Extreme poverty, discrimination or fear of deportation often prevents the population from freely participating in the Dominican mainstream society. Most no longer have links to Haiti.
The situation inside those bateyes is a humanitarian crisis of a unique proportion as generations of Dominican children born of undocumented Haitians are prohibited from obtaining a birth certificate making it difficult to attend school or access health services. At a young age, malnutrition, parasitic ailments, diarrhea, and other preventable diseases plague many Dominican and Haitian children. Others are left abandoned or orphaned as their parents are infected by or have succumbed to HIV/AIDS. Many children struggle daily just to survive as shoe shiners, windshield wiperers or beggars. Without alternative support, these children are prone to remain permanently in this vicious cycle of poverty.
The sponsorship and its benefits
Your sponsorship provides a chance for the batey children to achieve their desired potential, live with dignity, and participate fully in their own communities. Being a sponsor affords you the unique opportunity to save a child while knowing that you are contributing to his/her future.
Through a sponsorship commitment of just $29 a month, you can give a batey child hope by helping with life-enhancing benefits such as food, clothing, medical care, and the opportunity to become literate. Your sponsored child will also be encouraged by the knowledge that someone really cares. BRA is a 501c3 organization, and the cost of your sponsorship is IRS-approved tax-deductible.
A nurturing relationship
BRA promotes and coordinates letters and photos exchanged between sponsors and the children benefiting from sponsor support. This relationship of hope and encouragement is nurtured by sponsors receiving personal communications from the children, as they love to hear from caring people like you. When necessary, your letter will be translated at the BRA project serving your sponsored child. Periodically, BRA will arrange visits to the bateyes so you can personally meet your sponsored child.
Project organization
The Batey Relief Alliance’s regional arm in the Dominican Republic, BRA Dominicana, is the organization on the ground to identify and serve the beneficiaries, coordinate correspondence, and to ensure a lasting relationship between the children and their sponsors. We encourage you to contact BRA and learn how you can become a sponsor. Ulrick Gaillard, Batey Relief Alliance, P.O. Box 300565, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230. Tel, 917.627.5026, Email, childsponsor@bkreative.net. Visit us at www.bateyrelief.org.
Equal opportunity
The BRA’s Child Sponsorship Program addresses the socio-economic needs of all children living in the Dominican Republic’s bateyes regardless of race, sex, creed, national origin, religion or legal status.
OVERSEAS CHILD SPONSORSHIP
Sponsorship Registration Form
Please copy/detach and return
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Sponsorship Information
Type of friend you want to sponsor:
[ ] male [ ] female
[ ] infant 5 to 6
[ ] child 6 to 12
[ ] teenager 12 to 18
Sponsor Information
Full name: ________________________________________________________________________________
Mailing Address:___________________________________________________________________________
City:__________________________________________State:______ZIP:_____________________________
Dayphone:_______________________________Email:____________________________________________
Comments
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Forms of Payment
I wish to pay by [ ] check or [ ] money order: [ ] $348 for one year [ ] $174 per six months. Enclosed is my tax-deductible check or money order payable to Batey Relief Alliance.
Payment
Please mail out your payment payable to Batey Relief Alliance, P.O. Box 300565, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230. All payments are considered gifts to BRA and are therefore IRS-approved tax-deductible.
BRA will not share with, rent or sell your personal information to any outside source. BRA understands that the privacy of your personal information is important to you. We adhere to confidentiality standards to protect your personal information. Your personal information is maintained by BRA only to provide you with services you have requested.
