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> The Charity Christmas Gift Awards 2007 [0]
IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING a trip to Sock Shop this Christmas, this is the page for you. We've scoured the charities' catalogues and can now reveal this year's top charity gifts. How we chose the winners. [0]
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BEST CATALOGUE: the Good Gifts Catalogue [1]
This big catalogue divvies money up among dozens of charities and has an unbeatable variety of gifts. You can send an elderly person a cat (£35), kit out an African nurse with medicine (£45), or even buy a camel (£125).
The website doesn't look great but it does work (use it to send off for the catalogue) and you can also be sure that your money will be spent on what you specify. And that's surprisingly rare. Good Gifts website [2].
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BEST WEB CATALOGUE: Cows 'n' Things [3]
Help the Aged's (see profile [3]) gift range for older people abroad. The selection isn't massive, but whatever you buy, they'll make sure it gets to someone who needs it. The website actually made us laugh. And we're naturally miserable people. Cows 'n' Things website [4].
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BEST GIFT FOR BOYS: prize bull semen
If you're a poor farmer, this is pretty important stuff, and you can be sure that the cows will appreciate it too. Ahem. £10, SURF (Rwanda), through Good Gifts [5].
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> Charity toilets: head to head
Two of the biggest toilets compared
Charities want you to fund toilet-building to help stop water-borne diseases. It sounds a great idea, but what will your money buy? A single lav costs £30 from Oxfam (see profile [5]) while a block of them, apparently containing three loos, from World Vision (see profile [5]) costs £398 - or rather more than £100 a toilet. We can only assume that the World Vision lavs come with seat-warmers and an attendant - or at least, that's the only explanation we can think of...
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BEST FOR GIRLS: the plant that makes elephants sneeze
Stop elephants trampling crops with this nifty chilli plant that makes elephants scare themselves with an involuntary fanfare when they nibble it. Not only does the farm stay safe, but the farmer also gets to watch elephants sneeze. In the absence of a telly, what could be better? £68, Save the Children [6] (see profile [6]).
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BEST FOR SURVIVALISTS: self-heating food
Lucky RNLI (see profile [6]) lifeboat crew-members have whizzy tins of sausages & beans that heat themselves up. Magic. Three tins, £12, RNLI [7].
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BEST FOR ECO-WARRIORS: a rainforest warden
Pay someone to spy on illegal loggers in rainforests. £100, WWF [8] (see profile [8]).
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BEST FOR CAST-IRON STOMACHS: de-worming tablets
Remove the parasitic worms from someone's gut with some tablets - then get a nice card with a picture of them. Yum. World Vision [9] (see profile [9]), £7.
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> Don't get ripped off! Where to get the cheapest goats!
"Ladeez un gennilmen, get your cheapest 'eifers 'ere..."
- Eight cows for the price of one! Get your heifers for £70 at Help the Aged (see profile [9]) and save a packet. You'll wonder what World Vision (see profile [9]) are playing at charging £574 for theirs.
- Why pay more for your goats? At World Vision it's two-for-one time as they're selling them off for £14! Never pay £24 for a goat at Oxfam ever again.
- Chickens: Fed up paying £5 a chicken at Help the Aged? Get five - with a coop thrown in - for £20 at Good Gifts.
- Farms: Don't get ripped off by Good Gifts' £25,000 version! Get one on the cheap at Send a Cow (see profile [9]) - a bargain at twice the price at £2,000!
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BEST SHEEP: a Ghazni sheep
Buy one of these special Afghan varieties to help replace flocks which were decimated in conflict. These creatures also give their wool to be used in the training of carpet-weavers (whose carpets you can also buy). £105, Afghan Action [10].
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BEST FOR RICH FOLK: an Intelligent Giving researcher
Stonking value at only £20,000 a year. Funding one of these clever people will earn you a signed photo of Alain de B'Argain [10] and a tour of the office.
Potential benefactors wishing to give in excess of this amount will also get a computer permanently named after them and their portrait on the office wall. Intelligent Giving [10] (see profile [10]).
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LAST MONTH WE tracked down and sent off for every charity gift catalogue we could find, and had a good rummage around all the gift websites Google could offer up. We gave points to catalogues with an interesting range of gifts - not just goats and chickens - and those which were upfront about where the money went. Best were catalogues with a 'what-you-buy-is-what-they-get' promise.
As for the gift prizes themselves, we awarded them to presents that were interesting, told us about problems we didn't know existed, and looked like they'd make a big difference.
Back to top [10]
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> 'Which gift website will get your goat?' [10]
> Our top ten charity Christmas cards [10]
> More features [10]
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