Gaillard will present about the humanitarian work of his organization in HIV/AIDS and its collaborative effort to educate, prevent and treat the disease inside the Dominican Republic’s most vulnerable sugarcane agricultural communities known as bateyes. “In partnerships with the Dominican’s Ministry of Health, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Clinton’s HIV/AIDS Initiative, the BRA delivers free services in testing, psychological support, healthcare, antiretroviral therapy, nutrition and microcredit loans to hundreds of impoverished batey residents infected and affected by the deadly virus,” said Gaillard. But he also warned that unless adequate resources are available to continue those services, many lives will be at stake and lost.

The lecture is part of the Batey Relief Alliance’s effort to promote and advocate awareness of the needs of the populations it serves, and encourage public participation in its many projects. The Batey Relief Alliance has an established humanitarian aid intervention in the Dominican Republic since 1997 and now expanding into Haiti’s border regions. The organization addresses the socio-economic and health needs of children and their families severely by poverty, disease and hunger in the Caribbean and Latin America.

For more information about this release or to schedule a lecture with Ulrick Gaillard, contact the Batey Relief Alliance at bra@bateyrelief.org.

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BRA’s CEO, Ulrick Gaillard said, “A team of experts and executives from the U.S-based partner nonprofit, Vitamin Angel Alliance will travel from the 6-11 to Dominican provinces of Barahona and Pedernales identifying children who are at great risk of malnutrition and provide them with multivitamins, food and antiparasitic medicines.” Gaillard added that the food distribution is part of a USAID-BRA collaboration to distribute annually 75 MT tons of dehydrated food commodities to children and their families severely affected by poverty, disease and hunger in Dominican Republic’s most vulnerable communities.

Meanwhile from the 10-24, BRA will bring to Haiti’s commune of Anse-a-Pitres a team of foreign dentists, faculty and assistants to deliver, collaboratively, with local Haitian doctors and nurses free dental and medical care to local residents, and multivitamins and antiparasitic medicines to school-aged children (2-12). “These activities are first steps we are taking to gradually establish with local and foreign partners a permanent humanitarian intervention at the border to address the health and socio-economic needs of the populations,” concluded Gaillard.