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Every person who donates to charity wants to feel confident that their contribution will be used effectively and ethically. We want to know that our support will be used to drive measurable and meaningful change, and have a long lasting impact.

Recently, The Good Cause listed ChildFund Australia as one of Australia’s best international aid charities.

We’d like to tell you more about why we made their list, and what makes us one of Australia’s best charities in the international aid sector.

We deliver on our mission statement and vision for change

Our mission statement informs our approach across the programs we manage. ChildFund uses a holistic and collaborative approach to reducing child poverty overseas. We work in partnership with children, families and communities to ensure children are protected, nurtured, and given access to opportunities that will help them to break the cycle of poverty.

ChildFund Australia’s vision is a world without poverty where all children and young people can say: “I am safe. I am educated. I contribute. I have a future.”

To achieve this, we partner to create community and systems change which enables vulnerable children and young people, in all their diversity, to assert and realise their rights.

At ChildFund, we know that childhood has a deadline. It is a critical time where experience and conditions determine a child’s present, and their future. We must do all in our power to ensure that every child can survive and thrive. Because every child needs a childhood.

We’re clear about how donations are spent across our programs

ChildFund Australia aspires to high standards of integrity. This is one of our organisational values and commits the organisation to being open, honest and transparent in all activities.

Every year, ChildFund Australia publishes a financial summary as part of our annual reporting. Within the financial summary we outline:

the sources of our revenue;
expenditure across our programs and administrative infrastructure; and
distribution of revenue across our programs by geographic region.

We also publish annual reports for each of our country offices, and provide regular updates on our child-focused programs to supporters. You can read our Transparency Statement here.

We’re transparent about who leads our charity

Every organisation is as strong as its leadership, and we are committed to transparency about individual appointments.

Our current CEO is Margaret Sheehan, appointed by ChildFund Australia’s Board in December 2019. She was previously ChildFund Australia’s International Program Director, a role which she had filled for four years.

Margaret has extensive experience in the international aid sector, which uniquely qualifies her to lead the strategic direction and operation of ChildFund Australia.

We have policies in place to avoid the misuse of funds

ChildFund Australia recognises that it is vital to have policies and processes in place to prevent misuse of funds. For us, the prevention of fraud, corruption or other misuse is the responsibility of all those who participate in the work we do.

We are also committed to avoiding situations where the interests or personal circumstances of an employee or director could influence, or could be perceived to be influencing, the performance of their duties within the organisation.

ChildFund Australia’s policies apply to ChildFund Australia’s headquarter operations, and to the offices in each of the countries where we work. They include:

Counter Terrorism Financing and Anti-Money Laundering Policy
Conflict of Interest Policy
Fraud and Corruption Prevention and Awareness Policy
Employee Code of Conduct

You can find all of our organisational policies on our publications and reports page.

We have systems in place to manage our emergency response strategies

ChildFund is committed to protecting children and communities impacted by conflict and disaster and aims to support communities to be better prepared to address these threats.

We believe that risk reduction is the best strategy to manage disasters; however, when emergencies are unavoidable and do occur, our organisation provides support to children and their communities to quickly recover and re-establish their lives, dignity and livelihoods. In many cases, these responses will be initiated and build on local capacity and preparedness plans.

Our policy focuses on a set of key principles:

Localisation: ChildFund Australia recognises and respects strengthening leadership and decision-making by local and national actors in humanitarian action, in order to better address the needs of affected populations (DFAT 2018).

Humanitarian Imperative: The right to receive humanitarian assistance, and to offer it, is a fundamental humanitarian principle which should be enjoyed by all citizens of all countries. As members of the international community, we recognise our obligation to provide humanitarian assistance wherever it is needed (Red Cross Code of Conduct).

Link Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): ChildFund Australia will build disaster response on local capacity. We aim to address better responses by reducing community vulnerability with development of disaster risk reduction (DRR) programming that builds local capacity, enables local response and reduces risk.

National Coordination: ChildFund Australia respects global principles of sovereignty in Emergency Response and the right of governments to coordinate and direct national responses. Wherever possible ChildFund Australia Country Offices will work in partnership with the national government to value-add to respond to those in need.

The most recent emergency response coordinated by ChildFund Australia is our COVID-19 crisis response.

We demonstrate the impact of our programs clearly

ChildFund Australia prides itself on measuring and reporting the outcomes of our programs to demonstrate clear and measurable impact.

We’re focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for children, their families and their wider community.

Our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Framework is a vital tool to ensure we can evaluate the effectiveness of our work in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Vietnam and other Asia-Pacific nations.

This enables us to generate credible evidence about:

how ChildFund Australia’s projects contribute to change;
what we can learn about the quality and effectiveness of our programs; and
the reach and scale of ChildFund Australia’s programs.

You can find out more about ChildFund Australia’s Organisational Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Framework here.

You can donate or sponsor a child with confidence

We were named one of Australia’s best charities because we are a trusted, reliable and responsible not-for-profit organisation.

ChildFund Australia is also a member of Accountable Now, a platform of international civil society organisations that strive to be transparent, responsive to stakeholders, and focused on delivering impact.

As a member, ChildFund has signed 12 globally-agreed-upon Accountability Commitments and will report annually to an Independent Review Panel on our economic, environmental and social performance according to the Accountable Now reporting standards.

When you give to ChildFund Australia, you can donate or sponsor a child with confidence.

Exercise is an essential part of a balanced lifestyle, particularly for children. It significantly impacts a child’s development, improving children’s health and wellbeing.

The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child states that every child has the right to play. Let’s explore why exercise is so important for children’s health and wellbeing.

Exercise improves children’s mental health

Exercise aids greatly in maintaining a strong sense of psychological wellbeing. It’s also an effective tool to manage anxiety, depression and other conditions. This is because when you exercise, the body releases endorphins which trigger a positive emotional response.

The social aspect of sport provides a safe and comfortable place for children to make friends and feel valued, improving their sense of wellbeing. Participating in team sport improves a child’s confidence and self-esteem, promoting a more positive self-image.

Exercise also has the power to challenge gender roles and provide girls with new opportunities for socialisation, skills development and physical activity away from the home.

Exercise develops healthy muscles, bones and hearts

One of the main benefits of exercise is that it keeps the body fit, which is vital for children’s physical development.

When a child exercises, the movement of the bones and muscles increases their strength and endurance. Muscle pulls against the bones, particularly in the arms and legs, which accumulates bone density over time, even with very little weight.

Exercise also benefits organs, such as the heart. Physical activity increases body temperature, causes dehydration and creates demand for blood and oxygen. This requires the heart to beat faster in order to supply the limbs and organs with the sustenance they need to maintain their rhythm. With regular exercise, the heart becomes more efficient over time.

Exercise teaches children new skills

Children learn a range of new skills from exercise, both at a physical and social level.

Exercise improves these physical skill sets:

Gross motor skills
Balance
Coordination
Reaction time

It also aids in developing these social skills:

Teamwork
Interaction
Communication

When children participate in team sports, they develop and cultivate a sense of belonging, which is critical for their emotional health and wellbeing.

Exercise helps maintain a healthy body weight

In Western countries, food high in calories, fats and preservatives are much more readily available than ever before. Take-away meals, frozen dinners, soft drinks and boxed snacks are just some of the guilty pleasures that can cause weight gain in children.

Children are also much less likely to exercise than previous generations. Video games, television and streaming services occupy their attention, even to the extent of replicating team sports in a virtual experience.

It is essential that children exercise regularly to maintain a healthy body weight and reduce the risk of developing diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other health conditions.

Exercise strengthens the immune system

Does exercise boost immunity? Although there have been many studies into the impact exercise has on the immune system, it has not yet been proven if exercise has a direct effect on immunity to disease.

What is known, is that exercise keeps the body fit and strengthens the immune system’s capacity to respond to disease. This means that while exercise does not necessarily prevent children from getting sick, it will prepare and strengthen their bodies to fight off any illnesses that may occur.

Exercise is important because it sets children up for a healthy and balanced adulthood

Exercise is about balance and growth. It keeps children physically, psychologically and emotionally healthy, as well as providing opportunities for social interaction and skills development. This means that exercise contributes immensely to child development, setting children up for a balanced adulthood.

COVID-19 has disrupted livelihoods across the world. Many of the communities where we work in Papua New Guinea were already recovering from outbreaks of measles and polio, and are now struggling to cope within an already overstretched health system.

We’re working with local communities to run outreach programs, in order to identify cases of infectious disease quickly, and connect both adults and children with appropriate healthcare. Your donation today will help us continue to run these programs, and expand our reach to ensure every child has a childhood.

Gifts for Good

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