A View of the Future: September to December

Thanks to an outpouring of support as 2008 drew to a close, Global Impact funded charities were able to continue providing life-saving and life-sustaining assistance to millions across the globe. In order to keep the momentum going, here are some simple and inexpensive ways you can continue to make a real global impact throughout the entire year.

September: Deliver school supplies so young girls can get an education

Photo: Jenny Matthews/Save the Children Rasheda Mohammed Dawood at the Um Dowein school for girls in Darfur.

Two-thirds of the world's 880 million illiterate adults are women, and of the 125 million children who currently do not attend school, girls represent a staggering 70 percent. In many developing countries, girls must forego schooling due to poor health, forced marriages or to work menial jobs to supplement family income.

Save the Children believes that an uneducated girl is a “girl in darkness,” and works to overcome the barriers that for generations have kept mothers and daughters from realizing their true potential.

Providing easy access to learning is a first step toward fostering real change: Educated children go on to learn a trade or profession, and educated girls are less likely to fall prey to sexual exploitation and to the risks of early pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.

The organization's programs reach marginalized children in more than 30 countries, providing them with effective tools needed for a quality education.

For instance, at a cost of less than $60, Save the Children is able to provide a year’s worth of essentials including books, teacher training and educational materials. Another $60 builds a proper desk so a young girl does not have to study on the floor.

October: Show the world to an individual suffering from blindness

The World Health Organization reports that 45 million people worldwide are blind, and another 314 million have impaired vision. These numbers are growing steadily; in fact, every minute a child goes blind, an adult every 5 seconds.

An estimated 80 percent of global blindness is treatable and/or preventable, but 90 percent of the blind live in the poorest areas of the developing world without access to quality eye care at an affordable price. Simple treatments and tools—vitamin supplements, diagnostic testing and minor surgical procedures—can restore vision and save lives. Global Impact charities Helen Keller International and International Eye Foundation are on the frontlines implementing these treatments.

The world's leading cause of blindness, vitamin A deficiency (VAD), is a public health crisis that affects 127 million preschool children and 7 million expectant mothers worldwide. Yet VAD can easily be prevented with micronutrient supplements at an annual cost of approximately $1 per person. Such supplements have long been regarded as the most cost-effective public health intervention in the world.

Additional cost-effective interventions: $5 will purchase a pair of glasses for a child suffering from low vision; $50 will perform an operation for cataracts, which accounts for blindness in 48 percent of all adults.

November: Fund a small business with a small loan, grow an entire community

Half the world (nearly 3 billion people) lives on less than $2 a day, and 70 percent of those struggling to make ends meet are women. In developing countries, much of this income is generated through self-owned small businesses, including clothes-making, market stalls, and agricultural cooperatives. Without the capital to improve their yield or increase productivity, the poor will never be able to grow their tiny enterprises enough to lift the burden of poverty.

FINCA International’s Village Banking model uses a combination of microloans, job training, financial planning and crisis management to empower entrepreneurs to grow their income and assets. As businesses thrive, families earn more, purchase more nutritious foods, and are better able to educate their children. Business owners can then hire local workers, contributing to the economic development of their entire community.

To the poorest entrepreneurs in the developing world, an initial loan of $50 is considered a fortune. They can invest that money in tools to make their labor more productive, say a used sewing machine or a refrigerator to keep the produce they sell from going bad. The resulting skills and self-confidence pay off—98 percent of all microloans are repaid on time.

December: Emancipate a woman violated as a consequence of war

Photo: Sylvia Plachy/Women for Women Intl Jeannette, a Women for Women International program participant, pictured with her baby. Her hands were cut off by her rapist.

According to the United Nations, one in three women around the world are likely to be victims of gender-based violence in their lifetime, including sexual abuse, rape, genital mutilation, trafficking and forced prostitution.

In areas of armed conflict, such violence is increasingly being employed as a strategic weapon of terror, an attempt to irreparably destroy whole communities.

Even after the physical wounds have healed, survivors face enormous stigma and shame, and both women and their families live in a constant state of fear of additional attacks. Survivors are often considered unworthy of marriage, and if their injuries prevent them from bearing children, they lose what little social standing they once had.

Through Women for Women International’s rights-based programs, just $20 ensures that one woman will get the financial and emotional support she so desperately needs to restart her life.

Using storytelling and workshops, the organization helps educate women about their worth, roles and rights in society. Women for Women also sponsors support groups, business development initiatives and life skills training for program participants.

Similarly, a donation of any amount to the Global Impact Gender-Based Violence Fund allows additional charities, including American Jewish World Service, American Refugee Committee, CARE, International Rescue Committee, Planned Parenthood Federation of America International and U.S. Fund for UNICEF to address immediate needs, like health care and psychological support, while at the same time challenging the very beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate the cycle of violence.