Africare

After looking through many different charities, I found a charity that seems to be very respectable and most importantly, extremely effective and helpful toward their cause. Africare is a foundation that is devoted to helping people in Africa in these main areas as their foundation: Health and HIV/AIDS, food security and agriculture, water and sanitation, and emergency and humanitarian assistance. Charitynavigator.com describes the foundation as:

A leader among organizations assisting Africa since 1970, Africare has more projects on the continent than any other U.S.-based charity. Africare works to improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. Our programs address needs in four principal areas: health and HIV/AIDS, food security and agriculture, water and sanitation, and emergency and humanitarian assistance. Africare places communities at the center of development in the belief that only through strong communities can Africa feed itself, develop and manage its natural resources, provide adequate education and vocational training, address people's needs for health care and disease prevention, achieve economic well-being and live in peace. Since its founding, Africare has delivered well over $800 million in assistance - over 2,500 projects - to 36 countries Africa-wide.

This topic interests me because many of Africa’s countries are still struggling significantly and I like to see what is being done to help them. After watching many films that have taken place in third-world African counties such as Hotel Rwanda and Black Hawk Down, you can really see the difficulties that these citizens and families go through on a day to day basis. The need for assistance financially and in the form of being able to help sustains them without foreign aid is crucial for these people. These countries need to be able to sustain themselves so they can build themselves up and progress from being a third-world country to a functioning and stable country. They need to be able to provide jobs, health-care, clean homes for families, education systems, and so on and I believe that Africare will play a pivotal role in third-world African countries obtaining that goal.