Author: Christine Kerr

Rebel monk’s huge heart saves children

A former Buddhist monk with an adventurous and compassionate heart is channelling his once rebellious nature to provide a home and opportunities for orphaned and abandoned children in North East India. In doing so, Lobsang Phuntsok is transforming the lives of kids who face adversities similar to those he once battled as a troubled child.

Offering hope through education in remote Pakistan

A photographic assignment to Pakistan saw Australian-based photographer Andrea Francolini fall in love with the place and its people. Yearning to help the people who’d welcomed him into their homes, Andrea went on to launch My First School Pakistan to improve schooling in one particularly remote and mountainous region.

Rescuing Egypt’s abused horses

Australian woman Jill Barton was so distressed by the sight of sick and dying horses and donkeys in Egypt that she returned to open a charity to help. Egypt Equine Aid offers free veterinary treatment to abused horses and donkeys, providing a new chance at life for creatures otherwise destined to suffer painful deaths.

Entrepreneur ignites dreams for disadvantaged youths

Australian entrepreneur Liz Volpe is driven by the belief that the pursuit of our dreams can positively affect change world change. Which is why, through Project Gen Z, she is helping disadvantaged young people in Cambodia, Australia and Thailand, to learn the entrepreneurial skills they need to unleash their own dreams on the world.

Classroom of Hope

Classroom of Hope brings new hope to kids in developing countries by helping them to access education – the key ingredient in helping them break the poverty cycle into which they’re born.

Empowering Rwandan women to become business entrepreneurs

Australian woman Kelley Chisholm was so awestruck by the success of a self-help program she came across in Rwanda that she has dedicated herself to raising the funds to support it, and others like it in other parts of East Africa, India and Cambodia. The program teaches desperately poor women to help themselves by providing the life skills and business training they need to create their own employment. In doing so, it has transformed the lives of thousands.

Education frees girls from sex trafficking

After working on the streets of Cambodia with girls who’d been trafficked, exploited, raped and beaten, Australian woman Julie Dowse felt her heart breaking. Desperate to help the innocent people before her, she set her sights on preventing their exploitation in the first place by focusing on the one thing she knew could make a difference – education. Through her charity AusCam Freedom Project, Julie has helped educate hundreds of Cambodian girls and given them new hope for a life off the streets – a life of purpose, happiness and meaning.

Hairdressers herald hope for slum-living parents

Australian charity Hair Aid is helping slum-dwelling parents in the Philippines to learn the arts of hairdressing and sewing. In doing so it’s enabling parents to earn the money they need to feed their starving children and prevent lives of child prostitution, starvation and crime on the streets.

Everyday philanthropists – women empowering women

Everyday Perth women are stepping up as philanthropists to help disadvantaged women across the globe to live safely, with access to health, education and economic freedom, thanks to the creation of a collective giving charity – 100 Women. How and why are they having such an impact?