Gifts can boost good causes (From Stroud News and Journal)

Gifts can boost good causes

With Christmas looming, are you inwardly groaning over the small fortune you're going to spend on grotty gift packs for hard-to-please second cousins?

Well now you can give them the warm, fuzzy feeling those unworn socks never did by spending the money on life-changing presents for some of the world's neediest people. ALLI PYRAH talks to Stroud's Andy Jeans, chief executive of one of the charities involved in the Good Gifts Catalogue

HOW many times have you racked your brains for what to buy the person who has everything? Or received an invitation stating 'no presents please' but wanted to show your appreciation?

A Good Gift is the answer to such quandaries. Whether your budget is £12 or £2,250, you can buy anything from a library for a refugee camp (£95) to an operation to restore the sight of a child in the third world (£27).

For every Good Gift that you buy, you receive a gift card to keep or send. And all the charities participating in the scheme have guaranteed that the money, all of which is passed on to the delivering charities, will be used solely for the purpose stated. The costs of producing the catalogue and administering Good Gifts is funded by The Charities Advisory Trust.

And with such a variety of worthy causes participating, it's easy to choose a gift that will feel personal to the recipient. For the animal-loving teenager, giving an old dog a dignified retirement (£15) might make them paws for thought before they write you off as the world's worst parent. A sports fanatic is bound to get a kick out of sponsoring a cup for the Homeless Football League (£20). And who needs Interflora when you can buy an entire meadow of flowers for everyone to enjoy, creating a habitat for wildlife in the process (£20)?

Andy Jeans, of Castle Rise, Stroud is the chief executive of Apt Enterprise, a registered charity established in 1984 to rebuild war-torn countries such as Sierra Leone.

This is the first time the organisation has participated in the scheme, which is now in its third year.

"Through the Good Gifts Catalogue, you can help us strengthen the work we do in Sierra Leone," he said.

"We are training blacksmiths by converting weapons into farm implements.

"Now the war is over, many people have returned to their villages, which are overgrown. Their farms have been taken over by the forest, so we are helping people to rebuild their lives and get the economy going again."

For £1,000, a tank can be turned into 3,000 tools to equip a farming village of 1,000 families, providing a year's work for five blacksmiths in the process.

But for those on a limited budget, a Kalashnikov can be transformed into hoes and axe heads for what you might spend on dubious aftershave (£25), or a rocket launcher turned into sickles and school bells for the price of that underwear your wife will never wear (£55).

Now in its third year, the Good Gifts Catalogue has already made a remarkable difference to lives everywhere. Around 2,000 Rwandan war widows have been given goats. In Africa, 3,000 bee-keepers have been equipped with hives and 2,000 subsistence farmers supplies with seeds. In the developing world, 3,000 midwives are more mobile, having been supplied with bicycles.

Britain is starting to live up to its reputation as a green and pleasant land with the planting of thousands of trees. And abroad, an area of rainforest five times the city of London has been saved.

The scheme's lack of bureaucracy enabled participating charities to be amongst the first to respond to last year's Boxing Day tsunami. Saris were supplied to affected women as well as funds for boats, nets and fishwives' businesses.

So think twice before last-minute panic prompts you to splash out on a commercial calamity destined for the darkest corner of the wardrobe. Because the gifts in this catalogue all come with an identical guarantee: they are always wanted.

For more information on the Good Gifts Catalogue, visit www.goodgifts.org or order your copy by telephoning 020 7794 8000.