Africa Donations. PLEASE HELP!

Below is a list of some worthwhile charities:

Care

http://www.care.org/

Children’s Network International

http://www.childrensnetworkinternational.org/

Save the Children

http://www.savethechildren.org/

Smile Train, The

http://www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer

Shriners Hospitals for Children

http://www.shrinershq.org/Hospitals/Main/

US Fund for Unicef

http://www.unicefusa.org/

Below is a site used for checking out the efficiency of various charities:

Charity Navigator

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

        Simply a Rose to brighten your day,         And maybe lessen the cares in your way;         And also, too, to help you to know,         That in knowing you, many others grow!

Consider that one of the most pressing problems in 3rd world countries is overpopulation. When a population exceeds the number that an area can sustain the natural result is starvation, disease, and misery.

Sending boatloads of food and medicine is only putting the problem off for a while.

In Africa many women who do not want any more children do not have access to birth control. President Bush cut off funding for contraceptives in Africa alleging that the organizations involved forced women to have abortions (which the organizations strongly deny).

I’m not aware of any groups that serve Africa specifically but donations to the United Nations Population Fund should go a long way toward preventing starvation, the spread of HIV, and inprove the standard of living in many places.

The African continent is in dire need of assistance from the world community. The following startling realities and statistics answer the question: Why Africa?

Infant Mortality

Almost One-in-Five children in Africa will die before they reach the age of five.

Sub-Saharan Africa child under-5 mortality rate - 17.4% U.S. children under-5 mortality rate - 0.8%

Two-thirds of child deaths could be prevented by interventions which are not only already available, but which are also feasible to implement in low-income countries. That means there is the realistic potential to save the lives of more than 3 million African children every year.

HIV/AIDS

25 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Only 1 million cases of HIV/AIDS in all of North America.

12 million children are orphaned due to AIDS in Africa.

Almost 65% of the world’s cases of HIV/AIDS are found in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Life Expectancy

The average life expectancy in Africa is only 46 years. 30+ years below than the average life expectancy in the U.S.

Literacy

Only 50% of people in Africa are literate.

Income

300+ million people in Africa live on less than $1 a day.

The average annual income in Sub-Saharan Africa is $300.* The average annual income in America is $37,750. That means that in one week, most Americans make more than 2 times the amount of money that the average African makes in an entire year.

Kudos to you for wanting to help people…however, at your age, you won’t be able to organize a non profit without a co-signer, AND you’ll need a local counterpart to make sure that any charitable actions are in fact followed through on, which can be tricky.

Why not start at home? I’m 100% sure there are people in your own backyard that need help, your community or town…is there a particular reason you feel like Africa is the only place you should be helping people?

The odds of any of the money getting to the people you want it to is highly improbable… Most charity money goes into the hands of the people running the organizations on the local sites… There is very little accountability and it is hard to keep track of everything. If you want to help, I suggest UNICEF or something like that… Or charities that build wells. A lot of people have trouble getting clean water…

Well, I watched a video in school today about the people in Africa who are starving, and I feel like I HAVE to do something. It’s not fair that they’re starving and we have people here so obese they cannot walk. I NEED to do something, something BIG.

Awesome, now that you’ve shown you can parrot statistics…first, you need to register a non profit.

Then, you need a local partner in Africa to help distrubute whatever aid you can give.

Third, you’ll need fraud protection / prevention, as that happens a LOT with non profits.

Still sound like it makes sense?

The United States (aka, where you live…) has the lowest education standards in the entire industrialized world…the fattest population…AND the highest infant mortality rate.

Those are real problems…but, if you feel like helping strangers 1/2 way around the world makes more sense than helping somebody in your town who is struggling, be my guest.

Besides, it’s not going to be a huge organization. Just a small thing within my community.