It All Started with the CARE Package®

CARE fights root causes of poverty in the world’s poorest communities. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve education, health and economic opportunity.

The scope of CARE’s mission has evolved and expanded considerably since it was formed in 1945 to send CARE Packages to survivors of WWII in Europe and Asia. Approximately 100 million CARE Packages reached people in need during the following two decades.

Today, CARE helps poor communities create lasting solutions to their most threatening problems. CARE works in more than 65 countries (country list http://www.care.org/careswork/index.asp), in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Each year, we reach tens of millions of people through more than 1,000 poverty-fighting projects. CARE is effective and efficient: 90% of expended resources go to poverty-fighting projects.

CARE's Vision and Mission

Vision: We seek a world of hope, tolerance and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security. CARE International will be a global force and a partner of choice within a worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty. We will be known everywhere for our unshakable commitment to the dignity of people.

Mission: CARE’s mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Drawing strength from our global diversity, resources and experience, we promote innovative solutions and are advocates for global responsibility. We facilitate lasting change by:

• Strengthening capacity for self-help
• Providing economic opportunity
• Delivering relief in emergencies
• Influencing policy decisions at all levels
• Addressing discrimination in all its forms

Guided by the aspirations of local communities, we pursue our mission with both excellence and compassion because the people whom we serve deserve nothing less.

CARE’s Works to Fight Global Poverty

Programming Principles:

Principle 1: Promote Empowerment. We stand in solidarity with poor and marginalized people, and support their efforts to take control of their own lives and fulfil their rights, responsibilities and aspirations. We ensure that key participants and organisations representing affected people are partners in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of our programmes.

Principle 2: Work with partners. We work with others to maximise the impact of our programs, building alliances and partnerships with those who offer complementary approaches, are able to adopt effective programming approaches on a larger scale, and/or who have responsibility to fulfil rights and reduce poverty through policy change and enforcement.

Principle 3: Ensure Accountability and Promote Responsibility. We seek ways to be held accountable to poor and marginalized people whose rights are denied. We identify individuals and institutions with an obligation toward poor and marginalized people, and support and encourage their efforts to fulfil their responsibilities.

Principle 4: Address Discrimination. In our programs and offices we address discrimination and the denial of rights based on sex, race, nationality, ethnicity, class, religion, age, physical ability, caste, opinion or sexual orientation.

Principle 5: Promote the non-violent resolution of conflicts. We promote just and non-violent means for preventing and resolving conflicts at all levels, noting that such conflicts contribute to poverty and the denial of rights.

Principle 6: Seek Sustainable Results. As we address underlying causes of poverty and rights denial, we develop and use approaches that ensure our programmes result in lasting and fundamental improvements in the lives of the poor and marginalized with whom we work.

Program Areas:
Join My Village leverages two of CARE’s programmatic areas of expertise to implement an integrated approach to fighting poverty:

Education
Promoting the right to quality, relevant education and helping students, especially girls, master basic skills and critical thinking.

Economic Development
Using financial and business development services to help people – particularly women – generate income, protect assets, access new markets and increase financial stability.

CARE also addresses the root causes of global poverty through programming in:

Health
Promoting healthy behaviors, empowering communities to prevent and manage health risks and helping local institutions deliver sustainable, quality health services; fostering change that spans from the individual to national policy.

HIV & AIDS
Helping individuals and communities protect themselves from contracting HIV, reduce the negative social and economic effects of the epidemic and protect the rights of people living with HIV & AIDS.

Water and Sanitation
Helping poor people gain access to adequate, reliable supplies of water for drinking, bathing, economic activity and food production; helping families build sanitary latrines and encouraging healthy hygiene practices.

Agriculture and Natural Resources
Working with poor people to improve their lives through sustainable crop production, increased incomes, responsible use of resources, adaptation to climate change and community empowerment.

Emergency Response
Offering timely assistance to disaster-affected communities, providing the support they need to prepare for and survive emergencies, rebuild their lives and overcome poverty in the long term.

How CARE is Different

Poverty isn’t just an empty belly or a lack of money. If it were, simple handouts would solve the problem. CARE knows from six decades working on poverty that its symptoms are one thing, but its causes go deeper – and so must our responses.

That’s why CARE helps empower people – particularly women – to change the systems that perpetuate poverty. We help people claim their rights, create new opportunities and speak up for themselves and the next generation.

Why CARE Focuses on Women and Girls

Women and girls are the largest single group facing systematic discrimination and marginalization around the world. Women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, but earn only 10% of the income. They own less than 1% of the world’s property. Women represent two-thirds of the adults who cannot read or write, and girls are 55% of the children not attending primary school.

But even one pebble of opportunity creates ripples that benefit an entire community: Each extra year of primary education that a girl receives boosts her wages later in life by 10% to 20%. Children of mothers who attended at least five years of school are 40% more likely to survive past their fifth birthday. And a study out of Kenya showed that crop yields could rise by more than 20% if female farmers had the same education and decision-making authority as men.

In CARE’s six decades of experience, we have come to see how women’s well-being is the fuel that drives vibrant, healthy societies. That’s why we focus on women and girls to help make their lives better. We know that if we can help to make life better for a woman or girl, we are also helping everyone around them.

Photo Credits

Upper-Left Photo: © Jessica Wunderlich/CARE

Upper-Right Photo: © Meredith Davenport/CARE

Mid-Right Photo: © Phil Borges/CARE

Lower-Left Photo: © Ami Vitale/CARE