CARE International is a global confederation of 16 member organizations – Austria, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Thailand, United Kingdom, and United States – working together to end poverty.
CARE was founded shortly after World War II by a number of American organizations. They jointly decided to distribute relief packages to victims of the war in Europe. Millions of CARE Packages were distributed in the postwar years. The first 20,000 were brought ashore on May 11, 1946, in Le Havre.
As the economies of the former war countries began to recover, CARE’s focus shifted from Europe to the problems of the developing countries. From 1960 onwards, CARE was mainly concerned with health programs, the following decade, the focus was mainly on famine in Africa. CARE has now become one of the largest organizations in the world that focuses on the global struggle against poverty and its causes.
CARE Netherlands was established in 2001, when the former DRA (Disaster Relief Agency) joined CARE International. The main reasons were the need for international cooperation and expansion. Under its new name the organization continued to focus on disaster prevention and reconstruction, but could now make use of the existing worldwide network of the federation.
For more information or to contact us, please visit the CARE Netherlands website.