Building a Life Beyond Sugarcane in the Dominican Republic
An NGO is helping cane field workers access social services, exercise their rights and build more prosperous communities.
This article is adapted from AQ's special report on food security in Latin America. To see other organizations working on this issue, click here. The Dominican Republic’s sprawling sugarcane worker settlements, called bateyes, are home to over 200,000 people, though the figure may be far higher. They are so remote and marginalized that the true number is unknown. They are also vital for the sugar industry—long a pillar of the national economy—but beset by high rates of poverty, with scant access to adequate nutrition or basic services. Most residents are Haitian or the...
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