CAUSE Canada was founded in 1984 by Paul and Beverley Carrick. After years of working within the developing world for a large international charity, The Carricks returned to Canada to begin a family. Their many overseas partners, however, were not prepared to let them go. The Carricks were overwhelmed with project submissions from friends and former colleagues from both Central America and West Africa. Literally hundreds of excellent community based project submissions were given to Paul and Bev for funding consideration.

Paul and Bev in 2008

Paul and Bev in the early days of CAUSE

Initially, the Carricks championed the best of these proposals to many of Canada’s most reputable non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Unfortunately, the standard response was as follows: “Your projects are excellent, however, we have more of our own good projects on file than we can possibly finance. We cannot finance your overseas projects before we find funding for our own. You will have to look elsewhere for assistance.”

The lesson learned here was that there were (and continue to be) a limitless number of superb poverty reduction initiatives coming from the developing world that are not being financed. The absorption capacity of trustworthy civil society organizations from the South to spend money intelligently is virtually limitless. In response to this reality, the Carricks birthed CAUSE Canada.

Twenty-five years later, CAUSE Canada has raised and spent over 35 million dollars on development programs within Latin America and Africa. The organization has immunized approximately 400,000 Africans have been against the continent’s five major killing diseases, constructed thousands of latrines, trained thousands of village health workers & traditional birth attendants, and provided potable water & safe water use education to tens of thousands of people.

CAUSE Canada’s work has not been completed, however. For although the 26th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel quotes Christ as saying that “You will always have the poor with you” Christ does not say that we will always have extreme poverty with us. Therefore, we are challenged to overcome the evil of extreme poverty by performing compassionate acts of good. (Romans 12:21)

According to the United Nations (UN), 1.4 billion people are currently living in extreme poverty (earning less than $1 per day). The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) should serve as an important reminder to all of us that there remains much work left to do. CAUSE Canada plans on continuing the good fight of championing the Rights of the Poor until such time as extreme poverty ceases to exist.