Our generation cares. We care about the world, the people in it, the causes that have been ignored for too long, and it is ingrained in us that we not only should make a difference, but it is our responsibility to do so. Gone are the days of throwing guilt money at trendy causes. Millennials want to actively change the world, and according to the Millennial Impact Report, 97% of us want to use our specific skills to make an impact. But how do we do that?
CARE.org is helping make that reality. Founded after the Second World War to send care packages to help war ravaged Europeans recover, the organization has grown extensively and broadened its scope. These days, CARE is focused on finding unique and impactful solutions to battle poverty across the globe at its root causes, and it goes far beyond just writing a check.
If you check out their CARE Knows How you can get a taste of the kind of innovation that millennials just like us doing to make a change in the world. From “CARE Knows How to Prevent Gender-Based Violence with Beads” to “Preventing Malaria with Goat Poop,” you get a sense of how it is tangible actions that can make a difference in fighting poverty, not just fundraisers. So many of us are jaded by large charitable organizations that spend more of their funds on celebrity endorsements than the causes they purport to support.
With CARE, we can tailor our actions to the causes that matter the most to us. As the founder of a site for millennial women, being able to see that one of their core missions is to empower women and girls around the globe matters deeply to me. The fact that CARE is focusing on stopping violence against women, child marriage, education, and gender equality is a huge impetus to make me want to get involved. As they mention on their site:
“Women and girls make up the majority of the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. At CARE, we are committed to ending poverty — by attacking its root causes, not only its consequences.
In practice, this means that we can’t just build a school — we must ensure girls’ rights to education. It means not only providing HIV and reproductive health information, counseling and testing, but also fighting for every individual’s right to be free from abuse or violence.”
This video is a perfect look at how just helping women have their own means of making money can change generations of lives.
While it may seem trite, it is impossible to not care as you learn more about the work CARE is doing. Unlike many organizations, they’re not arbitrarily deciding what would work best in a culture or place they’re not familiar with. Their goal isn’t enforcing Western normatives on third world nations. Instead they are working with and within a community to find out what they need and then finding a way to provide it. This organization makes you want to get involved with the CARE Network, to speak out to Congress, and to put your money where it can make the most difference. CARE gives us the ability to not only see a difference in the world, but to be the ones to help make that impact. So go check out their work—you won’t regret it.
Thanks to CARE.org for sponsoring today’s discussion
