Oxfam is an organization that aims to fight global poverty. According to the organization, “We will always act, we will speak out and we won’t live with poverty.”

Oxfam works with its local partners from about 90 countries to tackle causes of poverty. Some of these countries include Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, South Africa and Liberia.

Among the issues addressed are food poverty, climate change, health and education, money for aid development, women’s rights, water resources, conflict and disasters.

What makes Oxfam unique is its ability to work on a plethora of projects such as:

• Providing low-income families with the skills to adapt to increasingly extreme weather in Bangladesh.
• Improving the health and living conditions of the indigenous communities in Colombia.
• Helping women farmers grow, sell more and provide a better future for their children in Ethiopia.
• Tackling malnutrition in Niger.
• Supporting poor urban communities to improve their health in Pakistan.

Aside working on projects at the grassroots level, Oxfam encourages ordinary citizens to donate to charity and take part in the fight against global poverty. Here, this allows for ordinary people to feel as though they are being stewards of the world.

Some of the successes of the organization include (1) a rice growing revolution in Liberia; (2) seeds of change in Nepal, which allowed vegetable seed farmer Kalpana Oli create income through smart farming and finding a gap in the market; (3) a lift-off for girls’ education in Pakistan and (4) a water project in Zimbabwe, which creates an irrigation system to provide clean water in Zimabwean communities.

Oxfam has helped improve many impoverished lives around the world and is expected to further its influence in the future.

– Vanessa Awanyo

Sources: Oxfam, Key One
Photo: Flickr