Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Osmosis loves Oxfam....





What can we do? Is the major question I am faced with from others who are boldly stepping up to help Darfurians, and one of the best answers right now (along with divestment and continuing political pressure and media pressure)is Oxfam America, a brilliant charity that operates without depending on govt. funding. Their unique and quirky "Oxfam America Unwrapped" program inspires and motivates one to donate with such options as : buying a cow for 75$ that will provide an entire economic support system for a family, 22$ hygiene kits, 20$ irrigates a farmer's land for 2 months, and 50$ provides emergency toilets. The program sometimes allocates your donation to things that relate to the thing you're buying for someone, i.e. sometimes instead of a 75$ cow, the recipient receives 75$ worth of cow related products like milk, butter, etc. or maybe it will help buy 75$ worth of cow feed. Also, donations are used to where they are needed most urgently with Oxfam's programs. Oxfam is one of the major aid agencies in the Darfur/Chad crisis.
Want to make sure your donation goes directly to benefit helping the people of Darfur? Try USA for UNHCR's program where you can specify that your donation goes to their Darfur program. According to USA for UNHCR's donation page 100% of your donation to Sudan/Chad Emergency will go directly to benefit Darfurians in some way.
Whoever you chose to support, keep in mind that everyone will have varying degrees of administrative costs that will be deducted from your donation. Oxfam is one of the few charities operational in Chad/Darfur that uses only an astounding 10-12% to cover administrative costs while the remaining 84-90% is allocated towards the emergency operations and or charity programs.

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