Clinton Global Initiative extends membership to Batey Relief Alliance

NEW YORK, July 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Early this month, the office of President Bill Clinton invited Ulrick Gaillard, founder and CEO of the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) to become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative (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.

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Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the CGI, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world's most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date CGI members have made more than 2,300 commitments, which have improved the lives of over 400 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at more than $73.1 billion.

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 this year from September 23 – 26. Nearly 1,000 journalists cover CGI's Annual Meetings, as the events recognize the progress that CGI's members have achieved.

In 2005, BRA partnered with the then Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, USAID and the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Health to develop the country's first HIV/AIDS prevention and antiretroviral treatment program for vulnerable and impoverished people living with HIV/AIDS inside impoverished sugarcane plantations rural communities known as "batey." In 2011, BRA successfully completed two Commitments to the CGI proving skills training and microcredit to 150 Haitian women in Haiti, and delivering clean water and comprehensive health and HIV/AIDS care and education to 2,300 families in the Dominican Republic.

To learn more about BRA's work, like on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Batey.Relief.Alliance; follow on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bateyrelief; and visit www.bateyrelief.org.

SOURCE Batey Relief Alliance