Introduction:

Charitable work fills critical gaps in the global socioeconomic infrastructure. Governments alone cannot solve every social problem. Businesses alone cannot meet every economic need. Without charity, more people in the world would die of hunger and disease, fewer children would learn to read and write, and more people would live in poverty. There would be more environmental destruction and fewer scientific advances. The participation of charitable organizations based in Australia is vital to maintaining a level of charity sufficient to address some of the world’s most critical needs, whether it is in Australia or anywhere in the world.

Since the establishment of Charity Quest in 1 May 2005, we have tried our best to setup objectives toward achieving our goal. Though we have had a short time as a charity organization we have already been able to implement two major projects in some of the poorest areas in Bangladesh where at the present time 130 million people are facing a series of environmental problems. The people are repeatedly confronted by natural and human-made catastrophes such as flooding, surface and groundwater pollution, droughts, cyclones, riverbank erosion, air pollution, wetland loss, tornadoes, earthquakes, and coastal erosion. While some of these environmental degradations and calamities are not directly related to human activities and land-use practices (such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and cyclones), others are related to human interactions with the nature.

Bellow we will discus some of your recent and future projects:

Recent Project:

Fresh Meat for the Poor:

Problem and Project Background:

Located in Southern Asia, between Burma and India, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. In an area of 144,000 sq. km., only 133,910 sq. km. is land. Most of the people of Bangladesh are landless and forced to live on and cultivate flood-prone land. What fishing areas exist are polluted by commercial pesticides. Bangladesh is classified as a least developed country as well as a low-income, food-deficit country. Out of a total population of over 150 million people, about 28 million (more than six million households) are considered 'ultra poor'. They suffer from chronic food insecurity and severe malnutrition. On average, they can afford to consume only around 1,800 calories daily, which is far below the recommended daily average of 2,300 calories.

Women and children have even lower nutritional intake. About 52% of women have a Body Mass Index lower than 18.5, 50 % of expectant women suffer from iron deficiency and 30% of newborn babies have low birth weights. The vicious circle of malnourished mothers - low birth-weight babies - and prolonged malnourishment has resulted in serious stunting and wasting.

Project Objectives:

The project is intended to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable peoples from chronic food insecurity and severe malnutrition. By understanding the problem Charity Quest has decided to slaughter animal such as sheep, goat, bull etc and distribute the meat to the poor and also generate some money from selling the skin of those animal to give it to the poor, which we have decided that we will organize this event every year. So as this year we have slaughter some cows on one of the biggest celebration day of the country. On the appendix “A” we can see some of the picture of the event.

Project Activities:

The volunteers have carried out distributions of meat in line with the following guidelines:

1. Select the neediest family on priority basis. A token will be provided to them to receive the Meat on a particular date, time and place.
2. According to the given token the volunteers will make a list of there name and addresses. So that only the neediest can get the support.
3. Charity Quest will purchase the animal and check its health condition. Then transfer them to the venue before the particular date. And ensure the security of the animals.
4. Collect the selling money of the skin of the slaughtered animal and give all of it to the poor as soon as possible.
5. The Member of Charity Quest will be monitoring the slaughtering and distribution project.

Beneficiaries:

The most vulnerable peoples from chronic food insecurity and severe malnutrition will get preference.

Winter Cloths for the Poor:

Poverty and simple living conditions leave the people of Bangladesh unable to cope with the harsh weather conditions that often strike during winter months. This project is intended to offer assistance to the poor through the provision of worm cloths to mitigate the effects of the cold weather.

Problem and Project Background:

The intensity of cold has increased all over the country causing extreme suffering to the poor people. The weather particularly impacts the poor and the destitute affected by floods and river erosion, most of whom live in the river basin. Children are particularly vulnerable to these bitter cold spells. Northern regions of Bangladesh are suffering from severe winter conditions. The cold wave accompanied by northern Himalayan wind hit the country, jeopardizing the normal way of life.

Due to severe cold started from 20 December, so far, 121 people was died in the districts of Kurigram, Joypurhat, Pabna, Bogra, Rangpur, Gaibanda, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari, Kumilla, Brahman Baria and Pabna - most of them are children and elderly people. Experts are predicting 'severe cold waves' in the month of January.

Project Objectives:

The project is intended to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable peoples ill- equipped to deal with the harsh weather conditions they are facing. On the appendix “B” and “C” we can see some of the picture and press release of the event.

Project Activities:

At the first time this project has been implemented in the district of Brahman Baria and soon it will take other part of the country when we have enough resource to help. The volunteers have carried out distributions of winter cloths in line with the following guidelines:

1. Select the neediest family on priority basis. A token will be provided to them to receive the winter cloth on a particular date, time and place.
2. According to the given token the volunteers will make a list of there name and addresses. So that only the neediest can get the support.
3. Charity Quest will purchase the winter cloth and transfer them to the venue before the particular date.
4. Maintain liaison with local government. Such as the District Controller, Police Department etc.
5. The Member Charity Quest will be monitoring the winter cloth distribution project.

Beneficiaries:

1000 families have been selected from those two districts. The most vulnerable families will get preference; for example: woman-headed families, widows, children families, orphans, disables and day laborers.

Future Project:

Clean Drinking Water & Proper Sanitation System:

Water is the basic liquid of life. However, over one billion people worldwide have no access to safe drinking water, and almost half the world's population lack adequate sanitation. This affects their health, their environment, their basic dignity and their children's future. For some countries the problem is scarcity of water, while in others water may be plentiful but of poor quality.

Health:

Around 80% of all sickness and disease in the world is caused by inadequate water or sanitation, according to the World Health Organisation. Water-related diseases account for 2.2 million deaths each year, mostly among children under the age of five.

Poverty:

Inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene not only cause sickness and death, but also increase health costs, reduce people's ability to earn a living, and reduce school enrolment rates, especially for girls. Shortages in water can lead to harvest failures and even famine. These entire factors combine together to contribute to the continuing cycle of poverty in developing countries.

Women and Children:

The poorest and most vulnerable people are worst affected by this problem. In most society’s women and children bear the responsibility for fetching water for the family a time-consuming, and physically demanding duty. Women in Africa and Asia, on average, have to walk 6km a day just to get water.

Project Overview:

Every eight seconds a child dies of water related disease. In Bangladesh, the water and sanitation situation is stark: 1.2 million people need access to clean water supply 3 million people are without sanitation facilities. Many people in rural Bangladesh resort to using unclean and unhygienic water for all aspects of life, including washing, drinking and cooking. Such practices may be directly responsible for spreading endemic diseases like diarrhea and worm infection.

Charity Quest is trying to implement an integrated community based project which includes access to clean water, sanitation facilities and hygiene promotion.

Goat Donation For Poor Family:

This project is in progress. Project charter will be uploaded soon.

Cow Donation For Poor Family:

This project is in progress. Project charter will be uploaded soon.

Vocational Training and Employment Support:

The Vocational Training and Employment Support services project will provide poor and distressed children, youths and adolescent’s low cost vocational training followed by Employment Support Services. In addition innumeracy and literacy education will be conducted in the evening. The program will enable the target group to have gainful sustainable employment.

Problem and Project Background:

Due to rise in migration of population from rural to urban areas, the number of poor and distressed people is increasing at an alarming rate, the highest being in Dhaka city. These people belong mostly to low income group e.g. peasants, landless people, laborers, victims of natural disasters and famine. Finding nowhere else to go, these people end up in slums and squatter settlements where they are deprived of basic services and facilities. The inherent poverty continues to plague them. Having no access to education the young children engage themselves in hard physical labour for low wages to earn their living and t o support their families.

They are not only illiterate but are also deprived of "socialization" to prepare for any positive adult role and are subject to abuse and exploitation leaving no way for their future generation to escape the vicious cycle of poverty. These groups of people are being addressed through this project.

Project Objectives:

The wider objective is to enable the poor and distressed children, youths and adolescents to have gainful and sustainable employment and an improved socio-economic astatas. The immediate objective is to provide low cost sustainable vocational training to the poor and distressed youths and adolescents followed by an employment support service, and also to provide numeracy and literacy education up to grade III to all age groups of the poor and distressed families including street children.

Project Activities:

1. Creating the infrastructure for education and training.
2. Developing capability of the target group.
3. Providing an employment support service.
4. Developing a functional operating and monitoring system.
5. Developing a sustainable cost recovery system for achieving self reliance.
6. Establishing networks and links with GOs. NGOs and other relevant bodies for mutual cooperation.
7. Create a situation in the villages that people will find proper job in the village and they will not think of just going to the city to find a job where the life is so uncertain.

Donation and Campaigning:

To collect Donation and doing Campaign for project is a big project itself. It requires lots of money and man power. As the starting points of the Charity Quest, we as an organization do not have access to enough money from individual or government. To achieve this we need support form the people of every walk of life and the government.

As the part of this we are contacting different other organization and businesses to help us with providing support on collecting donations. Soon we will put donation boxes in some of the shops and business in the city. Any suggestion from any one will be taken to our consideration to improve the situation.