Gift Catalogue Project

Vision and Objectives:
In an effort to provide essential and immediate assistance to people in deprived regions, the gift catalogue initiative provides a means to market the idea that providing assistance to others is possible by simple giving. It gives the donors the opportunity to make a donation to a specific cause/ person/ region.

Gifts would be tailored to the needs in different regions. The aim is to provide sustainable income generating tools or complementary items to individuals. According to regional needs, the items include but not restricted to: income generating animals (goats, cows, sheep, chicken, roosters, etc.), transportation animals, income generating tools (fishing nets, farming tools, sewing machines and other vocation related tools), health related items (mosquito nets, hygiene kits, etc.), children’s items (school supplies, storybooks, clothes, coloring books, coloring pencils, toys, etc.).

It can also be geared toward assisting a group of individuals or local facility (school, clinic or hospital for example) by listing items needed at this facility. The donors would then be able to visualize the needs they are helping fulfill while donating only a portion of the overall cost. The donations collected from different donors are then utilized to the benefit of the facility mentioned. The key issue here is that the donation per donor is pre-set.

Steps taken:
Regional offices and some partners were contacted on November 20th. They have been asked to investigate the needs and potential for implementing this project in their regions. I believe that the initiative is not clear to any of the offices/partners, as many have assumed that it was particular to Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) only. While currently sponsored children and their families might be a good start for this project (where CSP is being run), I hope that a full-fledged community implementation of the project would materialize. As of January 3, 2008, our partner is Somalia Al-Nahda provided this reply:

‘In terms of child gift, after discussing this issue profoundly, we have two options or suggestions; 1. To provide them with some amount of money to start with micro-businesses (tea shops, sewing machines, etc.) that is feasible for the urban areas.
2. Livestock herding (sheep herding, camel husbandry or cattle herding) for the rural areas. This scheme is easy to be implemented.’

HCI Lebanon has given the following reply on December 28, 2007:

‘Regarding the new initiative: HCI usually offers books and clothes to orphans.’

Offices/ partners contacted were:
Pakistan Regional Office, Lebanon Regional Office, Surovi (Bangladesh), Al-Nahda (Somalia), Rumah Zakat (Indonesia)