PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, October 8, 2007. – Batey Relief Alliance’s CEO, Ulrick Gaillard, returned last week from a five-day visit to the Republic of Haiti to discuss with the Haitian government and other key international organizations the possibility for his organization to establish a permanent humanitarian mission in the economically-torn nation. “My conversations with the representatives were most productive and promising,” said Gaillard.

Several high level meetings were held with the Ministers of Health, Interior, Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora. Mr. Gaillard also met with heads of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, and the Secretariats of Alphabetization and Planning. “The ministers were extremely receptive to a partnership with the BRA in geographic areas where lives are at stake due to the lack of healthcare access, particularly in the South-East region of the border with the Dominican Republic,” added Gaillard.

Since 1997, the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA Dominicana) ran successful programs in the neighboring Dominican Republic installing modern medical facilities, and implementing projects in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, primary care, blindness prevention, water/sanitation, food security, and education. More than 17,000 each year receive critical health services and essential medicines inside impoverished bateyes and rural and urban slums.

For more information about this release, please contact Ulrick Gaillard at bra@bateyrelief.org or (917) 627-5026. To learn more about BRA’s work, visit www.bateyrelief.org.