| Biography | Oxfam is an international confederation of 17 organizations working in approximately 90 countries worldwide to find solutions to poverty and what it considers as injustice around the world. In all Oxfams actions, the ultimate goal is to enable people to exercise their rights and manage their own lives. Oxfam works directly with communities and seeks to influence the powerful, to ensure that poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them. Each organization (affiliate) works together internationally to achieve a greater impact through collective efforts.
Oxfam was originally founded in Oxford, in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, social activists, and Oxford academics; this is now Oxfam Great Britain, still based in Oxford, Oxfordshire. It was one of several local committees formed in support of the National Famine Relief Committee. Their mission was to persuade the British government to allow food relief through the Allied blockade for the starving citizens of Axis occupation of Greece. The first overseas Oxfam was founded in Canada in 1963. The organization changed its name to its telegraph address, OXFAM, in 1965. |