TEARFUND
AT CHRISTMAS, Tearfund offers two ways to support its work
overseas. The first is to buy a virtual gift, with the recipient
receiving a certificate to explain how his or her gift has been
spent. The other is to buy a Fairtrade gift through Tearfund's
partner organisation "Created" (the new name for Tearcraft), which
provides a sustainable income for artisan groups in ten developing
countries.
Top for individuals
CREATED's best-selling item is a bike-chain photo-frame with an
antique-copper finish, £11. Its popularity has soared in line with
the growth of the "mamil" (middle-aged men in Lycra) population in
the UK. The frame is made by the craft organisation Noah's Ark, in
Moradabad, India, which employs only local artisans.
www.createdgifts.org
Top group gift
TEARFUND's flagship alternative-giving project "Toilet Twinning"
has become a popular group gift. For £60, an individual or group
can twin their lavatory with a latrine in a developing country,
providing a safe and hygienic facility for a community, and
reducing the spread of disease. Tearfund also offers twinnings with
school latrine blocks for £240. Each twinned lavatory is awarded a
certificate with a photo of its counterpart latrine, and its exact
GPS co-ordinates.
www.toilettwinning.org
WOODLAND TRUST
THE woodland conservation charity Woodland Trust has been
working since its formation in 1972 to plant native trees in the
UK, establish new woodlands, and protect existing species and their
wildlife. Although it sells a selection of woodland-themed items in
its online shop, the most popular gifts are the trees
themselves.
Top for individuals
FOR £15, a tree can be dedicated in one of 50 woods across the
UK. Each tree comes with a personalised certificate, information
about the wood's history and wildlife, and a map. "I dedicated a
tree to my mum last year," Jennifer O'Brien says. "I was tired of
buying her the same things year on year. I surprised her with a
visit to the wood: it was a day we'll both treasure for ever."
Top group gift
CHURCH or school groups can club together to dedicate an entire
area of woodland. A patch can be chosen in more than 700 woods,
starting from £250 for a quarter-acre, and £1000 for an acre, and
rising to £3000 for an Acre Grove with a bench. Each area is
dedicated only once, and can vary from young woodland to ancient
forest. About the size of a small football pitch, an acre will
contain about 100 mature trees.
www.woodlandtrustshop.com
EMBRACE THE MIDDLE EAST
IN ITS mission to serve the most disadvantaged people in the
lands of the Bible, Embrace the Middle East (formerly known as
BibleLands) uses funds from both its real gifts, and its
alternative-gift catalogue, to fund health, education, and
community-development programmes in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and
Egypt. Currently, it is also assisting with the provision of food
to internally displaced people in Syria.
Top for individuals
EMBRACE's most popular gift supports the provision of literacy
classes for women in Egypt, where women and girls make up 60 per
cent of the illiterate population, and educating females is often
seen as unnecessary. The gift "Words for Women", £15, equips
Embrace's partner-agency Think And Do to provide its "life school",
which educates disadvantaged women aged 15 to 25 in reading,
writing, and human and political rights.
Top group gift
MEDICAL gifts are the most popular group choice. Many are moved
by the fact that while we have a national health service in the UK,
the poorest cannot access health care in other parts of the world.
Most groups pick the £111 "operational procedures" gift, which
supports a hospital based in Bethlehem that funds essential
operations, or courses of treatment, for people facing sickness or
disability.
www.embraceme.org/shop
CHRISTIAN AID
PRESENT AID, Christian Aid's ethical-gift selection, has been
running since 2005, and has raised more than £16 million to help
some of the world's poorest communities. There are more than 50
different gifts on the website to choose from, but its supporters
seem to like goats best.
Top for individuals
MORE than 23,000 virtual goats have been gifted - particularly
to children and animal-lovers - since Present Aid began. A single
goat costs £19, and this donation goes towards Christian Aid's
"agriculture and livestock fund", one of six types of work that the
charity carries out through its partner networks. Out of this fund,
Christian Aid buys goats to give to people in poor communities,
particularly those living with HIV, providing an income through
selling goats' milk.
Top group gift
CHRISTIAN AID supporters cannot get enough of goats; a herd is
also the charity's best-selling group gift, which can be bought for
£76.
www.presentaid.org
Us.
THE Anglican charity Us. - formerly USPG - works mainly through
its partners in Anglican Churches around the world to improve
health, educate children, tackle discrimination, and give a voice
to women.
Top for individuals
THE charity's "Life-giving Gifts" have a top value of £50, and
so are mainly aimed at individuals. Two gifts that have proved
enduringly popular involve the provision of education for children,
and training for church leaders. This year's newly branded gifts
are: "A Place in School", £8; and "Train a Leader", £12.
Health-care gifts, however, pip even these two to the post. The
"Care for Mums and Babies" package, £16, goes towards training
midwives, maternal education, and helping prevent the passing of
HIV from mother to child.
www.weareus.org.uk
SEND A COW
SEND A COW provides African families with livestock and training
in farming, alongside courses in subjects such as gender equality
and conflict resolution. Every family that receives a gift promises
to pass on a gift to another family in need, starting a chain of
giving.
Top for individuals
RESEARCH suggests that education plays a critical part in
breaking the cycle of poverty, which is probably why Send a Cow's
"Educate a Child" gift, £25, is its biggest seller. While the gift
donations are channelled towards the agricultural programme, most
families manage to send their children to school within a few
months of receiving a cow, often paying the school fees in
milk.
Top group gift
WHAT else could Send a Cow's number-one group gift be, other
than a dairy cow? A cow can produce more than 3000 litres of milk a
year for a family, which then provides nutrition, ample manure for
their land, and a steady source of income from the sale of surplus
milk. The £750 price tag for a dairy cow also funds the provision
of training in animal husbandry, nutrition, veterinary care, and
shelter for the animal.
www.sendacowgifts.org.uk/
TRAIDCRAFT
TRAIDCRAFT works to tackle poverty through trade. It combines a
trading company and a development charity, which means that
supporters can either buy a physical item that supports its artisan
makers, or purchase a virtual "Gifts For Life" to support
Traidcraft's development work.
Top for individuals
ONE of the charity's many artisan partners is Gospel House,
based in Sri Lanka, which employs women who used to work in poor
conditions in clothing factories. Gospel House produces
Traidcraft's bestselling line - a brightly coloured hand-carved
elephant jigsaw, £8, which is an ideal gift for children.
Top group gift
TRAIDCRAFT's "More Than Just Connecting Communities" gift is
hugely popular with school and church groups. Its aim is to support
an entire neighbourhood, and one recent project helped Kenyan tea
farmers to diversify their incomes by keeping bees. This gift costs
£150, and groups also receive materials such as posters to
encourage their fund-raising efforts.
www.traidcraftshop.co.uk
SAVE THE CHILDREN
SAVE THE CHILDREN works to protect children in 120 countries
around the world. Its "Wish List" range enables supporters to
choose gifts by theme, from "weddings" to "newborns". Save the
Children is transparent about the fact that, when a gift is
purchased, the money is always spent on the "theme" of the
programme, but not always on the specific item.
Top for individuals
IN THE lead-up to Christmas, by far the most popular gift is
"Winter Clothes for a Child," £10. One of the uses of this fund is
to help children who live in places such as Tibet and Mongolia,
where temperatures can drop below -40˚C during severe winters.
Top for groups
ONE of the most novel and popular alternative group gifts is a
Camel Library for £190. These have been introduced in Ethiopia, and
are an innovative way of reaching children in remote parts of the
country, who often receive no formal education owing to poverty and
nomadic lifestyle. Led by a herder and librarian, the camels carry
trunks of books around the desert, giving children the chance
regularly to borrow reading material.
Hamza, 12, lives in the Somali region of Ethiopia, where only 51
per cent of children are enrolled in school compared with the
national average of 82 per cent. "The camel library comes to our
village every month," he says, "and stays for two and half days,
and we can borrow a book that we like to read. I like very much
reading story books."
www.savethechildren.org.uk/wishlist
WORLD VISION
WORLD VISION is the largest international children's charity
specialising in child-sponsorship and -development projects. Their
"Must Have Gifts" range from a TB-screening kit for £6 to a roof
for a clinic, costing £1600. All World Vision gifts are real items,
and are given directly to those in need.
Top for individuals
GOATS have done it again. World Vision's most popular indivdual
gift is a kid goat for £19, specifically donated to families in
Zimbabwe. Recurring drought in the region has meant that many
farmers struggle to grow enough crops and feed their children; so a
kid provides not only milk and cheese, but also security and extra
income, as it can be bred, sold, or used for meat.
Top for groups
GIFT "bundles" are an attractive way for a group of supporters
to buy several items at once. World Vision's "Education Bundle" is
its bestselling collective purchase, providing stationery for a
school, a children's miniature library, five school uniforms, and
two scholarships for children from struggling families, all for
£116.
www.musthavegifts.org
GOOD GIFTS
GOOD Gifts is the trading name for the Charities Advisory Trust,
which has a large number of UK charities as partners.
This network enables it to offer a vast array of alternative
gifts, from a bicycle for a midwife in Africa to a seaside holiday
for a British family of four. Good Gifts also believes that your
money should buy the actual gift; so supporters can target their
charitable giving with accuracy.
Top for individuals
HEALTH care and children's work are the areas that receive most
public support. A combination of the two makes up its bestselling
gift for individuals: a £27 operation to restore a child's sight -
a simple procedure to help those who suffer from cataracts,
trachoma, and other eye conditions that cause blindness.
Top for groups
IN THE "Gifts for Book-lovers" offering, the gifts range from a
year's supply of books for a child to funding an entire library in
India. The latter is Good Gifts' most popular group gift: schools,
church groups, and businesses can buy all the books and furniture,
and pay for a librarian's salary for two years for £1250.
www.goodgifts.org