ANSE-A-PITRES, Haiti. – In 2009, under a Development Grants Program (DGP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) became the first major donor to fund a women’s empowerment project within three Southeastern border communes of Haiti (Anse-a-Pitres, Thiotte and Grand Gosier) for the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) to organize and train 600 Haitian women and give them the tools they need to advance their own interests around issues of health, gender-based violence, food insecurity and financial/microcredit management.

“The DGP helped BRA expand its progressive work into a country devastated by back-to-back natural disasters, healthcare emergencies, hunger and high unemployment,” said Ulrick Gaillard, BRA’s CEO. Added to this, gender inequality often leaves the women helpless, without tools to break the cycle of poverty or advance their knowledge about those who can offer a hand-up. In consequence, Gaillard added, “the DGP aims at building capacity and providing 150 micro loans to the women to start new businesses and rebuild their economically-shattered communities.”

Meanwhile, food insecurity for these women continued to be an economic obstacle being aggravated by a lack of farmable land, agricultural supplies such as fertilizer, food crops, water resources, and an economic framework that would guarantee long-term economic/food independence. To address this, BRA, within the DGP, developed an agricultural component by providing training and visual demonstrations to 207 women and helping them to create small-scale agricultural gardens to produce basic food for their households. Training included the production of composts and a cooperative nursery where women plant crops like eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and cabbages. Anse-a-Pitres now has upwards of fifteen tire-gardens—a system that allows women to plant in their yards even if soil or space is limited. Project staff provides composts, seeds and labor. Women are also encouraged to provide some of the materials in order to reinforce ownership and break the cycle of complete dependency on aid.

BRA is already strategizing to create a cross-border agricultural development effort by connecting the Haiti small-scale garden initiative with its successful United States Department of Agriculture/Food for Progress (FFP)-funded 7,000-member cooperative-run agricultural program currently producing animals and food crops for 35,000 people inside Dominican’s bateyes. BRA previews to donate free supplies; use its agricultural experience in the bateyes to train women garden holders about advanced crop preservation and production, proper food handling, and marketing and cooperative sales; and eventually exchange or sell low-cost products of animals and food crops for cross-border/regional export business ventures.

Meanwhile, through a USAID-funded Food for Peace (IFRP) initiative, BRA is filling an important food/nutritional gap by distributing 187.6 MT of high protein Breedlove food supplement to 153,600 food insecure people inside bateyes and border communities, including USDA and USAID/GDP beneficiaries and their families. The Breedlove supplement adds all the necessary daily nutrients and vitamins lacked in the small garden-produced food—thus ensuring healthier food intake for all the communities involved.

“We believe that guaranteeing food security is an essential part of furthering community interests and our agricultural development programs in both the bateyes and border communities provide the triple benefit of training beneficiaries on growing produce to feed their families, saving them the exorbitant costs of purchasing food, and providing with the advantage of networking within local groups to engage in greater production/business ventures, therefore generating income that improves household economy,” concluded Gaillard.

PIANTINI, S.D. – James Watson, Acting Director of USAID in the Dominican Republic visited today the Batey Relief Alliance’s headquarters in Santo Domingo where he met with the organization’s CEO, Ulrick Gaillard and other senior BRA personnel. Mr. Watson discussed the humanitarian contribution of the BRA to the Dominican Republic and Haiti and the strong partnership it has developed over the years with USAID.

Since 2005, BRA received from the USAID US $2.2 million to develop programs in health/HIV/AIDS, food security and community development inside vulnerable and impoverished Dominican’s bateyes and Haiti’s border communities.

Through a Family Health International-managed “CONECTA” HIV/AIDS project, BRA launched an aggressive HIV/AIDS/Tuberculosis education and prevention campaign to help control and reduce the disease alarming rates inside the bateyes in the region of Monte Plata. Through a Food for Peace (IFRP) initiative, BRA distributed 412.6 MT of high protein food products to 258,600 food insecure people living with HIV/AIDS/TB, vulnerable/orphan children, pregnant women, the elderly and quake-affected internally-displaced people. The food distribution program is now fused as a temporary nutritional bridge into BRA’s USDA-newly-funded agricultural/cooperative development program inside seven batey communities. In 2010, USAID became the first donor to fund BRA’s expansion work into Haiti’s Southeast border communities by organizing and training 600 women around issues of health, gender-based violence, food security, and financial/microcredit management. The women’s “Development Grants” empowerment program aims at building the capacity of Haitian women and providing them with loans to start new businesses and rebuild their quake-shattered communities.

NEW YORK, March 8th. – The Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) joins others around the world to celebrate the International Women’s Day with activities planned by the organization in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. BRA’s CEO, Ulrick Gaillard is scheduled to travel to Haiti this Thursday to commemorate the occasion with dozens of women in Southeast border communes of Anse-a-Pitres, Grand Gosier and Thiotte.

In recent years, BRA has developed a variety of programs, training activities and employment opportunities aiming at raising the self-esteem of and empowering vulnerable and impoverished women living inside poverty-stricken Dominican’s bateyes and Haiti’s border communities. “It does not suffice to celebrate women once a year when they have to struggle everyday in order to survive,” said Maria Virtudes Berroa, BRA’s Executive Director.

According to Berroa, more than 70% of professionals working in the organization are women. In the bateyes, for example, women’s active participation as decision makers in BRA’s USDA-funded agricultural/cooperative development program is at 60 percent. The women are also provided with education on gender-based violence and legal rights and preventive health activities in cervical cancer, HIV/AIDS and family planning. Meanwhile in Haiti, 600 women in border communities have been organized, under USAID-funded Food Security and Women’s Empowerment programs around issues of preventive health and gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS and family planning, food security and financial/microcredit management to start new business and rebuild their quake-affected communities. “We must give these women the equal opportunity to better themselves and that’s our honest way to honor them,” concluded Berroa.