© 2002 CARE/ A John Watston

About half of the world's population — nearly 3 billion people — lives in poverty, on the equivalent of less than $2 a day. These people do not simply lack financial resources. They struggle each day to keep hunger and disease at bay. Basic opportunities to improve their lives are frequently beyond reach.

 The factors that keep people living in poverty are complex and interwoven. That's why CARE does much more than feed the hungry. We work alongside families and communities to understand the greatest threats to their survival and to help them find lasting solutions to their problems.

Through its Victories Over Poverty campaign, CARE is supporting integrated programs that include emergency relief, post-emergency rehabilitation and recovery, and long-term poverty-fighting projects. Whether it's teaching new farming techniques, training teachers or helping improve access to health care, CARE works with communities to create solutions that last.

Reducing Poverty: Proof is in the Numbers

Last year, CARE's programs directly improved the lives of more than 31 million people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Tens of millions more benefited indirectly from CARE projects that confronted poverty in their communities.

• Poverty is not having access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation systems. Last year, CARE helped 3 million people in 34 countries gain access to clean water and sanitation, reducing time spent gathering water and illness caused by poor hygiene.
• Poverty is a lack of accessible, affordable health care information and services. In 2002, almost 10 million children in 26 countries benefited from CARE's child health projects, reducing their vulnerability to disease.
• Poverty is not being able to produce enough food to feed your family. Last year, CARE's programs helped train more than 1.5 million farmers in 43 countries in activities relating to agriculture and natural resource management, increasing crop yields while conserving the environment. --CARE

"Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all."--Nelson Mandela

It just so happens your opportunity to make a difference is right now! Help us help CARE put food into bare cupboards. Donate here. 

The factors that keep people living in poverty are complex and interwoven. That's why CARE does much more than feed the hungry. We work alongside families and communities to understand the greatest threats to their survival and to help them find lasting solutions to their problems.

Through our Victories Over Poverty campaign, CARE is supporting integrated programs that include emergency relief, post-emergency rehabilitation and recovery, and long-term poverty-fighting projects. Whether it's teaching new farming techniques, training teachers or helping improve access to health care, CARE works with communities to create solutions that last.

Reducing Poverty: Proof is in the Numbers

Last year, CARE's programs directly improved the lives of more than 31 million people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Tens of millions more benefited indirectly from CARE projects that confronted poverty in their communities.

• Poverty is not having access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation systems. Last year, CARE helped 3 million people in 34 countries gain access to clean water and sanitation, reducing time spent gathering water and illness caused by poor hygiene.
• Poverty is a lack of accessible, affordable health care information and services. In 2002, almost 10 million children in 26 countries benefited from CARE's child health projects, reducing their vulnerability to disease.
• Poverty is not being able to produce enough food to feed your family. Last year, CARE's programs helped train more than 1.5 million farmers in 43 countries in activities relating to agriculture and natural resource management, increasing crop yields while conserving the environment. --CARE

Lack of sanitation requires that some women wait until dark to relieve themselves outside. Imagine the discomfort of a woman suffering from diarrhea who has to wait for hours.

Help CARE bring safe drinking water and sanitation to the rest of the world!  Donate here. 

These women are fighting the elements to draw water from a well in Sudan. 

Constant carrying of heavy water containers (up to 40 pounds) on the head, hips, or back, has severe health implications and can cause deformities.

It is common for women to drink less water than the rest of the family so they can carry more back to their families. This is a particular problem during childbirth or menstruation when they are often unable to replenish the fluids they have lost, or clean themselves.

Help CARE end poverty!  Donate here. 

One-year-old Badamassi Narauana of Niger and his mom have eaten nothing but bitter berries for two months. Lots of kids in Niger have bellyaches that make them cry.  

"Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning....They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play."--Fred Rogers, children’s TV personality and author. 

Hmmmmmmm.... I wonder what Mr. Rogers would say about children who don't have the word "play" in their daily lexicon. 

 Help CARE bring childhood dreams to children.  Donate here. 

Involving women in a safe water and sanitation project improves the status of women, provides dignity, and improves the health of women and their families. Women have more time to participate in agriculture, family care, or income-generating work.

Help CARE bring safe drinking water to the rest of the world!  Donate here. 

 © 2002 Andrea Blum/CARE
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A little food is nice every now and then, too. Just ask this little boy in Bangladesh.

You can share love and food at the same time!  Donate here.

"Poverty is the worst form of violence." Mohandas Gandhi

Let' stop it in its tracks for some kids today!   Donate here.

A Realty Times survey of U.S. home buyers underscored the importance of kitchens in the home buying process:

"The most popular kitchen features are walk-in pantries, island work space, solid surfaces, built-in microwaves, and special storage areas."

Other people just eat to live.

CARE provides food for hungry people.  Donate here.

Did You Know?

$50 can send an Afghan girl to school for a year

$125 can train a woman in Nepal to teach health in her community

$600 can keep 10 girls in Sudan in school and teach AIDS prevention

$1,000 can provide a day's supply of emergency rations to 330 families

How much can you spare?   Donate here.

We will help them

     ...or we will not.

Help us make a better life for these kids.  Donate here.

These moms take their kids to work EVERY day!

"A day at work will help your child discover the link between what they do now in school and what they can become in the future. They will have an opportunity to witness first-hand the vital public services that you and your co-workers provide each day."--National Institutes of Health, Take Your Child to Work.

"Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work^® Day is designed to expand opportunities for girls and boys, expose them to what adults in their lives do during the work day, show them the value of their education, and give them an opportunity to share how they envision their future. It is intended to be more than a career day."--Sara Gould, Ms. Foundation for Women

Help us make a better life for these kids.   Donate here.

These children in Darfur never heard of back to school shopping.

Won't you help us help them?   Donate here.

TORONTO  - The fight against AIDS cannot be won without reducing poverty, the humanitarian organization agency CARE said this week. CARE calls upon policymakers and practitioners meeting at the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Toronto to include food and income security — which are critical means of addressing poverty and the spread of the disease — in their HIV and AIDS strategies.

"Poverty exacerbates the pandemic, while the pandemic contributes to poverty and inequality.  If we are going to succeed in fighting AIDS, something has to change," said CARE Canada's President A. John Watson. "Nutritious foods and a steady income are critical to the health of those living with HIV.  If people stay healthy, they can continue working and contributing to their families and their communities. At the same time, if non-infected people are hungry and penniless, they often engage in risky behavior for day to day survival; and this contributes to the spread of AIDS."

CARE works with communities on prevention, treatment, care and support through 150 HIV and AIDS programmes in 40 countries. Communities are ravaged by the vicious cycle created when secure access to nutritious foods and a steady income is denied to people living with, affected by and vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.

Women and girls must be at the center of an effective response to HIV and AIDS. Issues related to gender are inextricably linked with food and income security and HIV and AIDS. By and large, it is women who are responsible for food production and preparation, and caring for families affected by AIDS, yet they have limited earning or negotiation power.

"Ignoring the critical role of women further exacerbates their vulnerability and weakens the fight against AIDS," said Dr. Helene Gayle, CARE USA president and International AIDS Society president and conference co-chair. CARE representatives from 16 countries are participating in the conference, sharing successes and outlining challenges in developing countries.

You can help provide medicine for children with AIDS.  Donate here.

Photo by Birte Thorsen

The rich man goes out yachting,
Where sanctity can’t pursue him;
The poor goes afloat
In a fourpenny boat,
Where the bishop groans to view him.

-- Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866), British poet. Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner (l. 36–40)

You can help feed children in impoverished countries.  Donate here.

Photo by Birte Thorsen

 "The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied ... but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." --John Berger (b. 1926), British author, critic. repr. In Keeping a Rendezvous (1992). “The Soul and the Operator,” Expressen (Stockholm, March 19, 1990).

You can help feed children in impoverished countries.  Donate here.

Photo by Birte Thorsen 

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)

You can help feed children in impoverished countries.  Donate here.