Founded | 2003 [1] and incorporated on 13 February 2008 [2] [3] |
---|---|
Founder | Hugh Evans and Nicolas Mackay |
Type | International aid and development charity |
Focus | Youth empowerment, upskilling and capacity building. |
Location |
|
Area served | Cambodia and East Timor |
Method | Political advocacy and development through partnership, led by young people |
Members | 200,000 (2014) |
Key people | Zahra Al-Hilaly & Lucie Tolhoek, Co-CEO's |
Revenue | A$2.27m (2013) [4] |
Volunteers | 150 (2014) |
Website | oaktree |
Formerly called | The Oaktree Foundation |
Oaktree is an Australian-based, non-government organisation that specialises in international youth development. Their purpose is to lead, demand and create a more just world. Founded in 2003, the organisation is run by young people aged 16 to 26, and overseen by an advisory board.
Oaktree collaborates with like-minded youth partners in countries including Timor-Leste and Cambodia. Together, they grow the capability and influence of young people across their region.
In Australia, Oaktree focuses on upskilling young people and advocating for the value of youth voices. Their community-driven campaigns connect young Australian voices to decision-makers to influence policy change on issues of justice, like Australian aid.
Oaktree was founded in Melbourne by Hugh Evans and Nicolas Mackay in 2003. After winning a World Vision contest to visit development programs in the Philippines, aged 13 years, Evans went on exchange to Woodstock School in the Himalayas in India two years later. A further trip to the rural valley communities of the KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa, where he volunteered with World Vision, saw him return to Melbourne in 2003 and join with Mackay and other young people to establish Oaktree, with the purpose of combating some of the inequalities that Evans had witnessed. [1] In October 2013, Oaktree launched a new brand and website to mark its 10th birthday.
Oaktree has invested over A$2.5 million into aid development projects between 2003 and 2012. [5] [ self-published source? ][ self-published source? ]
The mission statement of Oaktree as of 2018 is "Oaktree is young people leading, demanding and creating a more just world." Oaktree aspires to achieve its mission in three ways: [6] [ self-published source?]
As of October 2013, Oaktree has an office in every Australian state and in the Australian Capital Territory. With 125,000 supporters and 350 volunteer staff as at 31 December 2011, Oaktree generated A$1.76 million in revenue. [7] [8]
Oaktree supports the following international aid and development: [9] [ self-published source? ]
In 2022, the foundation launched the Youth Solidarity Fund to support the growth of grassroots youth organisations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Oaktree runs educational programs that aim to transform Australians into dedicated and effective agents of change in acting on extreme poverty.
Live Below the Line , run in partnership between Oaktree and the Global Poverty Project, is a five-day extreme poverty awareness and fundraising campaign. The campaign encourages members of the general public in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom to participate in order to develop a better understanding of the daily challenges faced by the 1.4 billion people experiencing extreme poverty. For each of the five days of the campaign the participants are encouraged to limit their food expenditure to the equivalent of the extreme poverty line, set at US$1.25. The participants use their daily experiences to bring extreme poverty to the awareness of others. [10] During 2011, this program generated A$1.4 million from 6,518 participants.
Other smaller programs include Generate and Schools 4 Schools focused on advocacy and peer-to-peer education respectively.
In 2009, Oaktree claimed that, together with World Vision and other advocacy groups, their advocacy via the End Child Slavery campaign contributed to an announcement by Cadbury Australia that it will change its milk chocolate range to fair trade sources. [11]
In 2020, Oaktree joined the 'End COVID For All' campaign, a collective group of organisations who support the assistance of vulnerable nations in the light of COVID-19.
Name | Term |
---|---|
Charlie English | 2024–present |
Zahra Al-Hilaly & Lucie Tolhoek | 2023–2024 |
Thenu Herath | 2021–2023 |
Shani Cain [12] | 2019–2020 |
Sashenka Worsman | 2016–2019 |
Chris Wallace | 2014–2017 |
Viv Benjamin [13] | 2012–2014 |
Tom O'Connor | 2009–2012 |
David Toovey | 2008–2009 |
Hugh Evans [1] | 2003–2008 |
World Vision International is an ecumenical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization. It was founded in 1950 by Robert Pierce as a service organization to provide care for children in Korea. In 1975, emergency and advocacy work was added to World Vision's objectives. It is active in over 100 countries with a total revenue including grants, product and foreign donations of USD $3.14 billion.
Make Poverty History were organizations in a number of countries, which focused on issues relating to 8th Millennium Development Goal such as aid, trade and justice. They generally formed a coalition of aid and development agencies which worked together to raise awareness of global poverty and achieve policy change by governments. The movement has existed in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. The various national campaigns were part of the international Global Call to Action Against Poverty campaign.
ONE Campaign is an international, non-partisan, non-profit organization advocating for the investments needed to create economic opportunities and healthier lives in Africa. The campaigning organization uses data, grassroots activism, political engagement, and strategic partnerships to get political leaders to support policies and programs that save lives and improve futures.
Reconciliation Australia is a non-government, not-for-profit foundation established in January 2001 to promote a continuing national focus for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It was established by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which was established to create a framework for furthering a government policy of reconciliation in Australia.
Tearfund is an international Christian relief and development agency based in Teddington, UK. It currently works in around 50 countries, with a primary focus on supporting those in poverty and providing disaster relief for disadvantaged communities.
The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) is an Australian non-profit organisation whose purpose is to back young people with the trust, resources, skills, and connections to make change. The organisation's vision is that young people have the power to beat injustice and transform the future.
Oxfam Australia is an Australian, independent, charity, not-for-profit, secular, community-based aid and development organization, and is an affiliate of the Oxfam International Confederation. Oxfam Australia's work is divided into four broad categories covering climate justice, Economic Justice, Gender Justice and First Peoples Justice as well as Humanitarian response. They believe that poverty in the 21st century is less a problem of scarcity but the result of how resources, opportunities, and protections are distributed and wielded.
Hugh Evans is an Australian humanitarian. Evans is the co-founder of both The Oaktree Foundation and Global Citizen, formerly called Global Poverty Project, and Executive Producer of One World:Together at Home and Global Citizen Live. He has received domestic and international accolades for his work in promoting youth advocacy and volunteerism in order to reduce extreme poverty in developing countries.
The World Population Foundation (WPF) was founded in 1987 in the Netherlands by Diana and Roy W. Brown. Their purpose was to create an organisation to draw attention to the effects of high birth rates and rapid population growth on maternal and infant mortality, communities and the environment, and to raise funds for population projects and programmes, with the ultimate aim of reducing world poverty and improving the quality of life of the world's poorest people.
The Australian Council For International Development (ACFID) is an independent national association of Australian non-government organisations (NGOs) working in the field of international aid and development. ACFID was founded in 1965, with Syd Einfeld as Chairman, and has over 130 members working in 90 developing countries and supported by over 1.5 million Australians. It lobbies for non-government aid organisations, and Australian government development aid.
Pratham is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India. It was co-founded by Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay. It works towards the provision of quality education to the underprivileged children in India. Established in Mumbai in 1995 to provide pre-school education to children in slums, Pratham today has interventions spread across 23 states and union territories of India and has supporting chapters in the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden, and Australia.
Blue Dragon Children's Foundation is a non-governmental organization based in Hanoi, Vietnam. The organization rescues children from crises including sex trafficking, forced labor, and slavery and then provides access to shelter, education and employment. More recently, Blue Dragon has been actively working to end human trafficking through a range of programs operating in Vietnam's most vulnerable communities.
The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is a youth organisation in Australia focused on climate change activism. The organisation aims "to build a movement of young people leading solutions to the climate crisis", by empowerment and education, running strategic campaigns, shifting the narrative, and building a movement.
Divya Dhar is a medical doctor from New Zealand. In 2010 she received the Young New Zealander of the Year Award.
Tzedek is a UK-based registered charity organisation which aims to provide a Jewish response to the problem of extreme global poverty. Registered as a charity in 1993, Tzedek has a number of overseas development programmes, working closely with local NGOs to alleviate extreme poverty in Northern Ghana and Northeast & Southeast India. As well as supporting local NGOs within these regions, Tzedek aims to develop the leadership skills of young Jewish leaders within the community to provide a long-term, sustainable solution to global poverty.
Live Below the Line is an annual anti-poverty campaign run by the Oaktree Foundation. The campaign began as a challenge in which participants would feed themselves on the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for five days to gain an insight into some of the hardships faced by those who live in extreme poverty, but was later expanded to include other activities to reflect a more diverse understanding of poverty. It also raises money for sustainable development projects across the globe.
Global Citizen, also known as Global Poverty Project, is an international education and advocacy organization that seeks to catalyze the movement to end extreme poverty and promote social justice and equity through the lens of intersectionality. The organization was founded by Hugh Evans, Michael Sheldrick, Simon Moss and Wei Soo, and aims to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to support the cause.
NGO Education Partnership (NEP) is a membership organisation that encourages active teamwork and alliance between NGOs working toward a greater cause for Cambodia’s education system, and also advocates on behalf of its member organisations in discussions and debates with the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports (MoEYS) in Cambodia. NEP aims to create an environment where different NGOs with the same goal, improving education in Cambodia, can come together to discuss contemporary issues. In addition, NEP aims to serve as an intermediary where problems identified by the various member NGOs can be conveyed to authorities governing education in Cambodia. This helps MoEYS receive positive inputs from organisations that care and would facilitate them making more informed decisions at improving the education welfare in Cambodia. Currently, NEP has 105 NGO members and the number is increasing. USAID is supporting Cambodia’s efforts to improve education. With a 97 percent primary net enrollment rate in 2020, MoEYS is close to achieving universal access to primary education.
Anna Rose is an Australian author, activist and environmentalist. She co-founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) in late 2006 with Amanda McKenzie. In 2012 she co-starred in an ABC documentary, I Can Change Your Mind on Climate Change and released her first full-length book, Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic. Rose is the founder and CEO of Environment Leadership Australia, a not-for-profit, non-partisan organisation championing community and political leadership on climate change. She sits on the Board of Directors of Farmers for Climate Action, is a Governor of WWF-Australia, an advisory board member for Australian Geographic Society, and a former Myer Foundation Innovation Fellow.
A street child in Bangladesh is a young person "for whom the street has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood; and who is inadequately protected, supervised, or directed by responsible adults”.