Think globally to show you CARE this Christmas

Australia is a lucky country, and its obvious from our high rate of donations to charity that most Australian’s are willing to share their good fortune. Rather than getting caught up in the spending frenzy this Christmas, Dr Julia Newton-Howes, CEO of CARE Australia, is encouraging us to think about letting our donation dollar make a different globally.

As the CEO of an international aid organisation, I am often asked “Are Australians generous supporters of overseas aid?”

I answer honestly that yes they are, and we need them to be.

I am proud to be a part of such a generous country – in fact the 2010 UK Charities Aid Foundation claimed that Australia is the most generous country in the world, with around 70% of the population giving money to charities.

Interestingly, this report found that it is the happiest countries that are the most generous, not necessarily the wealthiest countries.

The report also found that giving makes people happy – creating a positive cycle of giving and happiness, giving and happiness.

With the Christmas period almost upon us, there is a lot of discussion around whether there is too much emphasis placed on material items over this period – toys, gifts, food and other holiday indulgences.

This may be the case, but anyone who works with a charity will tell you that it is also a time when Australians give generously to those less fortunate.

For charities like CARE Australia – the country’s largest non-political, non-religious international aid organisation – a significant percentage of our public donations are generated over the festive season.

This may be because many charities provide an easy way for Australians to connect their charitable nature with their gift giving. For CARE Australia, that mechanism is our newly released CAREgifts catalogue, which is full of meaningful gift ideas that help a family living in poverty.

For the first time, this year’s catalogue includes the gift of sending a girl to school for a year.

It costs just $69 and when you consider that an educated girl becomes and educated mother, who has a healthier family, earns a greater income and is more likely to send her own children to school…it’s hard to think of a more powerful gift.

There are many other gifts in the catalogue too –a piglet, a goat, safe water for a family and school books.

We rely on the generous support shown by donors to CARE over the festive season in order to reach as many people living in poverty as we can.

With 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, our mission to achieve a world where poverty has been overcome can seem daunting at times, but we are making significant improvements in the lives of millions of people every single day.

Last year alone, CARE assisted 82 million people across 87 countries, through 905 poverty-fighting projects.

Without the support of Australians, we simply could not help the millions of people we work with each year.

If we can support communities to identify and overcome the causes of their poverty, and provide the tools and knowledge to make improvements in their lives and the lives of their families, we may just achieve the one true gift that I would like: a world without poverty.

Dr Julia Newton-Howes became Chief Executive of CARE Australia in October 2007. As CEO she has focused on ensuring gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to CARE’s programs. Julia is on the Board of CARE International and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFID). She joined CARE Australia from AusAID, where she was the Assistant Director General. While at AusAID, she was posted to Vietnam as Counsellor (Development Cooperation) and was an adviser for two years to Australia’s Executive Director to the World Bank, based in Washington DC. Julia was born in India and spent her early life in Zimbabwe, leaving to attend Imperial College at London University, where she obtained a bachelor degree and PhD in science.