Where Is The Headquarters Of Oxfam?

Oxfam refers to a confederation of 19 different Oxfam organizations, all working together in more than 90 countries around the world to alleviate poverty. Oxfam was founded in 1942, and it is now being led by Oxfam International. The name is derived from the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. It is one of the leading non-profit organizations with an extensive collection of operations partnering with other organizations to fight against injustice, inequality, and poverty

Headquarters Of Oxfam

Headquarters of Oxfam international is located at The Atrium building along Chaka road in Kilimani, Kenya. The organization was founded at Oxford by a group of social activists, Quakers, and Oxford academicians. The organization was officially registered in the UK in 1943, and the founders included Henry Gillette, who was a prominent local Quaker, Alan Pim, Gilbert Murray, and his wife, Theodore Richard Milford, and Cecil Jackson-Cole.

History Of Oxfam

The first meeting of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief was held in 1942 at the old library of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Oxford. The meeting aimed to help the citizens of occupied Greece who were starving. The famine was a result of the Axis occupation of Greece. The members wanted to persuade the government of Britain to allow food relief to pass through the blockade. The Oxford community was one of the several local committees that had been formed to support a national famine relief committee. Joe Mitty became the first paid employee of Oxford who started working at the Oxfam shop on November 9, 1949, on Broad Street, Oxford. Mitty was managing the accounts and distributing the donated clothing. He introduced the idea of selling anything that people were willing to donate and develop the concept into a national chain. The first overseas committee was established in 1963 in Canada, and by 1965 the name was changed to Oxfam as it appeared in the organization’s Telegraph address. The Oxford committee from that time was known as Oxfam Great Britain or Oxfam GB. A group of independent NGOs formed Oxfam International to work together on the international stage to achieve a more significant impact and reduce poverty by working together to achieve justice. In 1996, Oxfam International was registered at The Hague, the Netherlands, as a non-profit foundation.

Oxfam America

Oxfam America was established in 1970 as an independent, not-for-profit organization as well as an affiliate Oxfam. Oxfam America was established in response to the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. Its headquarters is located in Boston, Massachusetts, and it has a campaign office in Washington, DC. Oxfam America advocates on climate change adaptation, aid reform, food security, fair trade, and access to medicines.

Criticism Of Oxfam

Oxfam Great Britain was criticized in 2005 by other non-governmental organizations for being too close to the then New Labor government in the UK led by Tony Blair. New Internationalist magazine in 2005 criticized Oxfam as a BINGO (Big International Non-Government Organization), and that it had a corporate style of undemocratic internal structures. It also termed the organization as addressing only the symptoms as opposed to the causes of international poverty by espousing neoliberal economics and assuming roles conventionally filled by national governments.