BATEY COJOBAL, Monte Plata province, D.R. – February 3, 2011. – As part of its continuing effort to improve living conditions inside deep rural vulnerable batey communities in the Dominican Republic, the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) collaborated with the Presbyterian Church-USA’s Committee for Self-Development of People (SDOP) to install three new water systems inside Batey Cojobal, a severely impoverished community of 150 families located in the district Sabana Grande de Boyá, province of Monte Plata. “There is no reason why people have to resort to drinking contaminated waters to harm their health. We want to benefit the majority of residents with these water systems to enhance the quality of their lives,” said Cynthia White, SDOP international director.

For thirty years, residents of this tiny community relied mainly on contaminated rivers, rain, or open wells as a source of water—all of which contained water-borne pathogens. Based on a BRA’s statistics, about 14% of all patients who visited its medical clinic sought treatment for parasitic infections, and those at highest risk of diseases or death are young children and people living with HIV/AIDS, whom do not have a hardy immune system to defend against the pathogens that often cause diarrhea-related rapid weight loss and death. “Understanding that access to clean water has been for too long deprived to these people and we were determined and committed to finding a permanent solution to this problem,” said Ulrick Gaillard, BRA’s CEO.

Three years ago, BRA initiated an aggressive campaign to reduce water-related diseases by distributing 63 biosand water filters to families and 4 million multivitamins and antiparasitic tablets to rid 62,000 children of intestinal worms – thus improving their lives and health. “The new Cojobal clean water distribution project not only will positively impact the health of more than 2,000 people, but also their community’s economy by eliminating the need for residents to purchase high-priced gallo

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ulrick Gaillard, BRA’s CEO travels to Washington D.C. tomorrow morning for a one-day visit with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officials to discuss the progress and success of the organization’s current agricultural/cooperative initiative, under a USDA-funded Food for Progress program, being developed inside seven rural batey communities in the province of Monte Plata – and evaluate the need for similar projects in the neighboring Haiti.

In 2009, USDA awarded BRA more than $1.5 million to establish the bateyes’ first member-owned and managed agricultural cooperative to coordinate training and the development of community infrastructures and 105 acres of fertile land to produce food security and economic self-sufficiency for 35,000 beneficiaries and their families.

Under its regional Food Security program, BRA is currently distributing, through a USAID Food for Peace Program, 187.6 metric tons (more than 9 million rations) of Breedlove dehydrated lentil blend food product to 25,600 food insecure and earthquake-affected people living in Haiti’s vulnerable and impoverished border communes of Anse-a-Pitres, Thiotte and Grand Gosier and the Dominican Republic’s sugarcane “batey” communities and urban and rural barrios.