Christmas gift ideas
 

With the scramble of Christmas shopping beginning I thought a thread where we could all add our favourite African charity that we use for gift giving might be helpful.

So please tell us about the charity that you support by donating, or fostering or ?? on behalf of friends and family at Christmas.

My absolute favourite is the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where you can foster an elephant or rhino for someone near and dear in your life. They do such amazing work and their fostering programme is extremely well organized. The foster parent receives a monthly email with updates on their special animal and the beautiful certificate with a watercolour by Angela Sheldrick they provide at the beginning looks awesome all framed and gift wrapped.

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp

What yours?

That's a great idea, KathBC! I sponsor children in Africa through several organizations:

http://www.kenyahope.org/

http://www.tanzanianchildrensfund.org/

http://www.worldvision.org/m/tt1

If you can't sponsor a child for the long-term, World Vision has a "gift catalog" from which you can choose a gift for the amount you choose to spend. Kenya Hope has a "Kids for Kids" program where you buy a goat for a child. Tanzanian Children's Fund has several community-based projects for which they need funds (located near Karatu.)

Another way to help is through microloans. TCF has a microloan program, but you can also use Kiva to fund a microloan.

http://www.kiva.org/

Help the Hirola
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives...a-campaign.xml

Fa la la la
La la la la

WWF is getting some this year. This is an amazing operation:

http://wwf.tumblr.com/post/125704052...d-black-rhinos

40% of the people in the world don't have access to a toilet. That's 2.6 Billion people. I hope some day to make a difference:

http://water.org/

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to "vent". Happy Holidays and fa la la la la, la la la la!!

Wow! I just learned what a hirola is!

World Vision's catalogue is great too...gave my brother a pig for his 60th! :-d

http://www.bbb.org/.../child-sponsor...l-way-wa-12791

my fav also gave them a small airplane one year for medical

work... Samaritan's Purse also.

"40% of the people in the world don't have access to a toilet. That's 2.6 Billion people. I hope some day to make a difference:

http://water.org/"

What a timely post, Christabir, with World Toilet Day being just recently on Nov 19. The focus of that day is on the very stat you cite--40% of the world has no access to hygenic human waste disposal.

What an educational post this has become!

atravelynn - I can't believe you knew about WTD! I posted that quote on my Facebook page on World Toilet Day. It got no likes or any responses. :(

Matt Damon was on This Week w/ Christianne Amanpour on Sunday. They do micrifinancing for households to hook up to the local water systems. It's like $100, but they don't have $100. It allows (mostly) women to find work instead of water, and they have a 97% payback rate.

There is too much need out there. We could post thousands of worthy charities.

So let's keep posting.

I'm learning so much here and I imagine so are a lot of others.

I got my 26 year old daughter a goat for Christmas from World Vision and she was thrilled when I recently gave her the card they sent. My 29 year old son was given soccer balls for a school and mosquito nets for many families as his gift from World Vision.
Our family has gone to Senegal,South and North Africa and after seeing alot of these people this gift catalogue just made sense this year. Our family really doesn't need "more stuff".

Here's a very interesting development in Southern Africa:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/med...item25129.html

If they can pull it off, it will be amazing! I didn't know anything was in the works. 109 MILLION acres!!

"The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) is a conservation area on an unprecedented scale.  Encompassing 109 million acres and crossing five southern Africa countries—Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe— KAZA is the largest transboundary conservation area in the world.

In August 2011, the presidents of the five countries signed a treaty to promote a culture of peace and shared resources as they strengthen regional economies through wildlife tourism.  KAZA aims to improve the livelihoods of the 2.5 million people who live in the Okavango and Zambezi river basin regions of Southern Africa."

Good posting on the KAZA ....Thanks

I have to admit I never heard of World Toilet Day.

I saw 10 Hirolas......then I woke up...I was only dreaming :)

We sponsor children through Plan International whose mission is "to achieve lasting improvements in the quality of life of deprived children in developing countries, through a process that unites people across cultures and adds meaning and value to their lives":

http://plan-international.org

Those of us who are fortunate enough to travel should think about carbon offsetting. I support Carbon Tanzania:

http://www.carbontanzania.com/

atravelynn, if you donate at nature.org do they bombard you with solicitations for more money through the mail? That is one thing I dislike about some of these places - the wasted resources.

WWF is a huge organization and does fantastic work. I prefer the large charities as they are much more efficient and can do big projects. All charities fund raise - that's how they get money. They have to spend money to make money. WWF is a four-star at Charity Navigator.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/inde...ary&orgid=4770

Thanks for sharing such a good post.
You can get more Girlfriend Gift Idea here.

http://www.socialgift.com/