SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, March 2, 2009. – Batey Relief Alliance’s field organization—BRA Dominicana and United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) signed recently a letter of intent, as part of a regional initiative to manage facts and knowledge about famine and malnutrition affecting Latin American and Caribbean countries. BRA’s Executive Director, Maria Virtudes Berroa said the main objective of the collaborative effort is to identify nutritional needs of children at the highest level and key strategies to reduce poverty and malnutrition in the region.

Each year, BRA partners with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) delivering 75 MT tons of dehydrated food to more than 5,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, vulnerable and orphaned children, pregnant women, and the elderly living in sugar cane plantations known as bateyes, rural and urban slums, and frontier communities the Dominican Republic. More than 55,000 children benefit from BRA’s multivitamin and deworming program fully supported by Vitamin Angel Alliance.