HPA and GSMS Grade Eight LA

ICARE Organization: Defending dignity, fighting poverty

 

Imagine a typical day in the life of a teenage girl like you or l: you'd grudgingly get up at an ungodly hour to start school, which is only tolerable because all your friends are there, and miraculously make it to the time the dismissal bell rings. You'd go home, probably spend every waking minute on Facebook or Tumblr until it is time for a plentiful meal that you barely touch because you too are inevitably "trying to lose three pounds over here!". You eventually resort to your room because nobody really understands you, texting into the wee hours of the morning to anyone that'll listen. Sounds pretty accurate, right? Now imagine trying to live like a girl your age in the poorest developing countries in this world--pretty soon, "Uuggh, I have to go to school tomorrow," becomes, "Tomorrow, I have to work in the beating sun all day to earn barely enough for meager sustenance for my family." Some people in our world continuously produce endless millions to maintain fully-functioning Mercedes or heaters for crystalline "but chilly" outdoor pools. With just a quick spin of the globe, the simplest most innocent of phrases like, "What's for dinner?" become, "What should we give up to afford dinner?” Thankfully, there's an organization that's striving to help, with empathy, compassion and a whole lot of CARE.

 

The CARE Organization fights poverty in all regions of the world and its underlying causes so that people from all walks of life can learn to become self-sufficient with the resources that they now have. CARE places exceptional emphasis in working with and alongside women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to create pivotal poverty-fighting change in the communities they love and continue to develop. Recognizing as well that women suffer disproportionately from poverty and its aftermath, most of the programs and campaigns that CARE offers are almost exclusively to help women and their families. CARE is known for their unshakable commitment to helping people overcome poverty, and in the future see a world where people live hopeful and dignified in their own skin. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, CARE is now helping people in more than 87 countries in the world build better lives and learn to become valiant in the face of poverty, to be independent in their own communities.

 

It all started in 1945, when 22 organizations from all around rushed together to send out crucial "CARE Packages" to survivors of World War II. May 11, 1946 was a fundamental day as approximately 20,000 Packages reached the war-ravaged port of Le Havre, France. Even after that, some 100 million more CARE Packages were sent out years after to other victims of such disasters, first in Europe and then in other parts of the developing world. At first, senders had to specify a particular person to be the recipient of a Package, but soon the head offices were inundated with directions to send Packages to "A hungry occupant of a thatched cottage," or "A schoolteacher in Germany", and so on.

 

Decades ago, CARE put an end to the sending out of only CARE Packages and decided to focus mainly on becoming a fully-operating organization. That was an immense success, and today, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, helping disaster relief, and much more. But, the CARE Package still remains a pivotal, iconic symbol of the compassion and generosity of the people that make up the great organization and the people that support CARE's mission and vision of seeing a world full of hope, peace, and care from all countries. As perfectly epitomized by President John F. Kennedy in 1966: "Every CARE Package is a personal contribution to the world peace our nation seeks. It expresses the nation's concern and friendship in a language all peoples understand."

 

CARE offers a plethora of projects, programs, and campaigns that anybody can donate and contribute to. To name only a few of the current and most popular: Help Her Live is the campaign that focuses mainly on maternal health in developing countries, and the fact that childbirth shouldn't be a game of chance; Help Her Earn is the branch that deals with helping women in poor countries obtain jobs and earn enough, eliminating the stereotype in such places that women cannot be trusted with money; and Help Her Learn, the educational campaign that strives to put girls in school and have a consistent education. Again, CARE's focuses aren't only on the welfare of women in poverty-stricken countries--they also offer numerous other projects, like the Violence Against Violence campaign, The Human Face of Climate Change, and their disaster relief programs. CARE says that in their vast experience, they've come to see that women's well-being within their communities is the fuel that drives communities into healthy, hopeful lifestyles. Today, CARE is applying their knowledge as tools to help people in poorer communities and families chart their assured course out of poverty--for good.

 

It is obvious in the last couple of years that CARE has been doing all they can to help people from the poorest countries around the world overcome poverty and lead happy lives. According to CARE's annual report, they've given food, clean water wells, and other essential services to 290,000 people in one year alone. The statistics say it all: in just the fiscal year of 2010 alone, CARE worked in 87 countries around the world helping them fight poverty and respond to crises like the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. They have approximately 969 projects going on at this very minute across the globe--that would be more projects than if two thirds of the entire student population at FHS decided to individually move to a developing country and each start a huge, fully-operating project of their own to help in different communities. These projects are helping communities thrive by the dozen, and they've reached more than 82 million people around the world and helped them vanquish poverty in their villages and cities--for good. In the time it takes to read this sentence, someone's life has probably been changed for the better by the CARE organization.

 

There are so many ways to get involved with the CARE organization! Together, we all have the power to help women and girls in developing countries, by learning, speaking out, volunteering, and donating. You're participation in CARE is what makes the miracles they achieve happen: spread the word on MySpace, Facebook, follow CARE on Twitter, and watch their videos on YouTube. But if SLACKtivism isn't normally what floats your boat, than CARE offers several employment opportunities, including internships and fellowships, so you can make your difference however you can. You can donate to the campaign or support the project of your choice by visiting CARE.org/Donate, and you can donate by mail, phone, or online. Even if some of us may not know it, George Street Middle School is involved with CARE, as part of their campaign, and what we're doing by building the Twitti School in Zambia is exactly the kind of work that CARE does. So before getting home, plugging in, and generally tuning out from everything beyond your computer or phone screen, keep in mind that while some people in this world are helpless to and at the mercy of the unfair and disastrous situation they find themselves in, some of us aren't. And it's up to us to fight for that change.

 

There is an exquisite phenomenon in meteorology known as the butterfly effect. What it suggests is that a teeny, tiny disturbance in the weather, like a soft kiss of a breeze in the Sahara desert, can be the cause of a perplexing chain reaction that causes, thousands of miles away and weeks later, torrential downpours in Venezuela. Now, while CARE may not be able to predict the weather, they are surely up to terms with and know how to execute a much less meteorological and much more humanitarian "butterfly effect". By getting involved with CARE, you too could be at the cusp of a potentially life-altering (for the better) butterfly effect, and who wouldn't want to be the slight sputter of rain or the meager shift in the wind patterns that could be the beginning of something magical? Remember that you have the power to fight for a change. And of course, not every breeze becomes a storm, but every storm must begin assuredly, irrevocably, with a breeze.