NEW YORK. – After an initial letter of invitation from the office of President Clinton in January to join the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Ulrick Gaillard, founder/CEO of the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) is now a full member of the CGI—a community of international leaders committed to identifying groundbreaking solutions that reduce poverty, improve the environment, and increase access to health care and education around the world. “I am truly honored for this opportunity and look forward to interacting and working with those deeply involved in transforming lives around the world,” said Gaillard.

Throughout the year, CGI helps companies, nonprofits, and governmental organizations build partnerships that match cutting edge ideas with the resources needed to create real change. The CGI community is driven by a common belief that by “working together, we can do more.” CGI members have launched nearly 2,000 projects, improving the lives of 300 million people in more than 170 countries. “Certainly, I want to ensure that our projects in the Dominican Republic and Haiti become part of an agenda and this global concept,” added Gaillard.

Membership culminates in CGI’s Annual Meeting, an invitation-only event for top leaders from around the world, which will be held in New York September 19 – 22, 2011. Since 2005, CGI’s Annual Meetings have convened nearly 150 current and former heads of State, along with 15 Nobel Peace Prize winners and hundreds of top CEOs. Nearly 1,000 journalists cover CGI’s Annual Meetings, as the events recognize the progress that CGI’s members have achieved.

For a number of years, BRA has partnered with the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, along with USAID and the Dominican Ministry of Health to deliver life-saving healthcare and antiretroviral treatment to vulnerable and impoverished people living with HIV/AIDS inside sugarcane batey communities of the Dominican Republic.

NEW YORK. – The Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) announces a new collaboration with the Florida-based Food for the Poor (FFTP) to receive, customs-clear, store and distribute free of charge donated medicines and basic medical supplies to economically-disadvantaged patients receiving critical health services at BRA’s clinics in DR’s batey Cinco Casas in the province of Monte Plata and Haiti’s Southeastern border commune of Anse-a-Pitres.

Each year, more than 40,000 adults and children visit BRA’s clinics seeking assistance in general medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, dentistry, ophthalmology, laboratory, and specialized services. All are automatically qualified to receive free food, multivitamins and antiparasitic medicines. Those living with HIV/AIDS also receive free medical consult, counseling and referrals, and antiretroviral treatment.

“BRA’s partnership with FFTP is crucial in receiving the donated medicines as thousands of our patients are often too poor to purchase life-saving antibiotics or other drugs to cure a disease or a simple infection. Often, it is a matter of life and death,” said Ulrick Gaillard, BRA’s CEO.

PIANTINI, Santo Domingo, D.R. – Direct Relief International (DRI) and Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) agree to collaborate in a Hurricane Preparedness Module Program, which will pre-position medicines and medical supplies in order to enable the immediate treatment of vulnerable populations in the event a hurricane or other natural or civil disaster should occur in Haiti or/and the Dominican Republic. Post the deadly earthquake in Haiti in 2010, BRA and DRI mobilized millions of dollars-worth of life-saving supplies (clean water, medicines, antibiotics, vitamins, food, first-aid materials, etc.) to address emergency needs of thousands of young children and their families.

The objective of the one-year Program is to save lives by improving the delivery of pharmaceuticals and other disaster relief materials in response to emergencies on the island. Items are selected based on the recommendation of medical professionals who were involved with the relief effort after the 2005 hurricanes in the Caribbean, Central America and the United States. DRI, a California-based nonprofit public benefit corporation, is a BRA longtime partner, providing medical relief and health assistance to organizations dedicated to serving the poor and to victims of natural disasters and civil strife in the United States and throughout the world.