Vacation planning is a delicious time of spinning the globe and deciding where to spend upcoming days together. Yet as you examine the planet closely, it's nearly impossible to ignore areas around the world where people are in desperate need of help.
In some places in need of charity, travel is imperiled. In others, such as New Orleans, you can help rebuilding efforts by vacationing there. Share some of your good fortune with others around the world by supporting any of these legitimate and highly effective charity organizations.
Couples who want to donate time as well as money can learn about Volunteer Vacations.
Genocidal Arab Janjaweed rebel groups have murdered and raped black Africans in a bloody attempt to force them from their homeland, creating some 200,000 refugees from the Sudan. Continuing violence makes it difficult for international aid agencies to provide aid. Save Darfur is an alliance of over 100 faith-based, humanitarian and human-rights organizations dedicated to stopping the violence and assisting survivors.
More than $130 million has been raised by the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund, which was designed to provide grants for medium to long-term recovery needs in the affected areas. “Although much has been accomplished, rebuilding the Gulf Coast is really just beginning,” former President George H. W. Bush recently said.
Two Christmases have passed since the tsunami washed away the lives of more than 200,000 people and left heartbreak and devastation in its wake. UNICEF has reconstructed and rebuilt health facilities and schools, helped more than 1 million people get access to water, and distributed nearly 1 million mosquito nets to help protect children and women from contracting malaria.
CARE projects address the crippling effects of HIV/AIDS, particularly in high-risk countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The ethnic cleansing war of 1992 to 1995 destroyed families and farmland and ruined the economy. Women for Women International funds projects throughout the world. In Bosnia, monies are used a to train women to become community leaders.
Typhoon Durian, which struck southern Luzon in the Philippines, killed as many as 1,000 people and left tens of thousands more families homeless. The Save the Children team in the impact area has been assisting families in evacuation centers and distributes essential non-food items such as blankets, mosquito nets and hygiene items.
