Santo Domingo, DR.- The Executive Director of the Batey Relief Alliance, Ulrick Gaillard, joins the executive board of the Dominican Republic’s Lions Club Arroyo Hondo Santo Domingo (Club de Leones Arroyo Hondo). “It is a great honor for me to be part of this great work, and serve with those who care about the rest of the world,” said Gaillard.

Gaillard holds the post of 3rd Vice-President of the club, and is already planning with other members a full agenda of relief activities focusing on blindness prevention, nutrition and primary health care for the country’s most impoverished in the bateyes, the urban slums and the border areas.

“The Lions Clubs International foundation represents a strong example of commitment to social justice work, and provides the kind of leadership role that sets a clear path leading to the enhancement of lives all around the world,” added Gaillard.

Gaillard has always been involved, as a non-member, with the LCI securing funding to start a mobile health clinic project currently providing primary care to needy populations of the bateyes; working with the New Jersey Lions Eyeglass Recycling Center to start a Blindness Prevention program in the bateyes and city slums; and securing additional funding from the LCI to build and renovate the very first medical center in the bateyes. “My heart and soul have always been with this work, and I am confident that I will do much more to help further the mission of the LCI,” concluded Gaillard.

Gaillard has also worked with prominent Lions including Dr. Carlos Justiniano, past International Director of the Lions Clubs International, George Johnson, Executive Director of the NJ Eyeglass Recycling Center and many others.

Ulrick Gaillard is Founder and Executive Director of the Batey Relief Alliance, a US-based humanitarian entity uniting local grassroots organizations, government partner agencies, faith-based groups, universities and the international community in a strategic partnership to help create a productive and self-sufficient environment for the economically disadvantaged in the Caribbean, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Santo Domingo, DR.- El director ejecutivo del Consejo Estatal del Azúcar (CEA), Víctor Manuel Báez, informó ayer que más de 2 mil personas recibieron atenciones médicas en el Batey Gautier, de Boca Chica, durante un operativo realizado por médicos especializados de los Estados Unidos.

Henry Copp, Virtudes Berroa, Vitcor Manuel Baez

El funcionario explicó que el operativo de salud, en el que participaron catorce médicos oftalmólogos y optómetras de la Asociación de Voluntarios de Winsconsin (VOSH), fue clausurado con la asistencia de la directora ejecutiva de la institución BRA Dominicana, Virtudes Berroa.

Báez informó que la actividad, auspiciada por Batey Relief Alliance, fue organizada por la Gerencia de Desarrollo Social del CEA, en la que participaron los especialistas estadounidenses. Explicó que se atendieron a más de dos mil personas de todas las edades, a quienes se les regalaron las medicinas y los lentes, siguiendo el procedimiento utilizado por BRA Dominicana durante más de cinco años que viene realizando este tipo de operativos a favor de los habitantes de los bateyes.

Por otra parte, el equipo de la unidad médica del CEA prestó los servicios odontológicos y atenciones pediátricas a cientos de niños de la comunidad a quienes se les practicaron tratamientos de desparasitación.

Estos medicamentos, por un costo de más de 2 millones de dolares, fueron traídos al país por BRA Dominicana con el patrocinio de Batey Relief Alliance, y el club de Leones de Arroyo Hondo.

Virtudes Berroa explicó que estas actividades se realizan para mitigar la necesidad de servicios de salud.

Manzanillo, Dominican Republic -. April 15th, 2004, BRA?s multinational foreign volunteer health professionals arrive early this morning in Manzanillo, a municipality of the Dominican province Montecristi, where more than 1200 children and adults are lined up waiting to be served. ?My nine young children and I thank the spirits for this opportunity. Our country has been devastated, and we have no care if we are sick,? said unemployed and separated Dieudonne Cheri, a resident of Derac, a small municipality of Haiti?s Northwestern province of Fort Liberté.

Almost one month ago, the Batey Relief Alliance and BRA Dominicana started a multi million-dollar humanitarian relief intervention covering the northern geographical border areas of two provinces (Ouanaminthe and Montecristi) and 25 municipalities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. At the end of the five-day mission, more than 5000 Dominican and Haitian children and their families will have received free consultation, medicines and vitamins, clothing and food supplies to complete their short-term medical and dental treatment.

Unlike families who were permitted to enter the DR yesterday through the border gate at Dajabon, hundreds of financially strapped persons must travel on small and unsafe boats ?la yola? crossing the river massacre from Haiti into Manzanillo. Sometimes tragedy occurs when the boats capsize and drown the children on board.

According to Pierre Louis Eugene, a Haitian fisherman from Haiti?s municipality Mellac, now living in Manzanillo after escaping death from rebel groups, it is a costly journey for poor Haitian families to come to BRA?s makeshift clinics in Manzanillo, but it is worth it since they do not have access to any health care. The 17 kilometer-trip costs each approximately 55 Haitian gourdes or US $2.5 covering ground transport from Derac to the river shores, boat crossing and military payment. When ask about whether Haitians receive a permit to enter the DR, Eugene responds, ?the money is the permit.?

BRA?s health care team will stay one more day in Manzanillo before ending their humanitarian journey back to the United States on Friday. ?Many lives are at stake, and it is evident that the border zones, whether in Haiti or the Dominican Republic, badly need organizations that can provide continuing health care and education to the populations,? said Ulrick Gaillard, Executive Director of the BRA.

BRA Dominicana and the Batey Relief Alliance work at the border with member organizations, Servicio Social de Iglesias Dominicanas (SSID) and Fundacion Todo Por La Salud (FUNTOSALUD), delivering health care in Manzanillo and Dajabon. The Dominican immigration and military authorities contribute their support.

Log onto BRA?s website at www.bateyrelief.org to receive daily updates of our humanitarian relief mission at the Haiti/DR border.