Impressed with CARE
	There are many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working in Africa. They receive money from individuals and governments in order to implement certain programs such as reducing poverty, enhancing health, or improving education. Some of the more well known NGOs are: - Red Cross - Catholic Relief Services - Africare - Geekcorps - Save the Children - World Education - Oxfam - Amnesty International - Democracy Watch - Doctors Without Borders - Hunger Project - CARE Recently, I met with the Director of CARE/Mali to learn about their work. I was very impressed. CARE manages helpful projects, they have an active skills transfer program, they encourage accountable management of projects, and they ‘care’. CARE stands for “Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere”. They were established in 1945 to help with recovery efforts from World War II. They now have 12,000 employees and 900 projects with a budget of $590 million and operate in 66 countries, including Mali. Two projects that particularly drew my attention were: - women’s banking project where they trained women to establish local banks, save money, and improve the lives of their families and communities - local agriculture project which is helping people feed their families Unlike some other NGOs, CARE is noted for its effectiveness. It spends 91% of its funds on project work, and only 9% on overhead. If you would like to learn more about CARE, or support their effort worldwide, please visit their website.