Don't let the happy faces and the MTV-style fonts fool you. CARE has a difficult and unfortunate job. Worldwide, 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty, surviving on less than one dollar per day. Some 800 million are chronically undernourished. Other unsettling development facts would simply fill this page.
CARE is probably the best-known, largest and most effective of the aid organizations.
Through widespread small-business development, health care, family planning, girls' education, agricultural training and environmental protection, CARE would like to put itself out of business. But for every million who receive a healthy meal, millions more stare at empty bowls. The CARE Web site tours people through war, AIDS and famine with a surprisingly positive attitude. Pictures show smiling faces. Perhaps the idea is to convey a sense of hope, rather than despair, in the effort to glean financial assistance from casual Web surfers.