Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific

Action on Poverty (AOP) is an independent, secular, not-for-profit, fully accredited Australian non-government organisation (NGO) that was founded in 1968 and incorporated in the state of New South Wales in 1983.

In January 2018, the organisation changed its legal name to Action on Poverty Limited, trading as Action on Poverty (AOP). This eliminated the need to use their former name, The Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific Ltd.[1]

History

The idea for the organization was born in the 1960s when Stanley Hosie, an Australian Marist priest, began doing missionary work in the South Pacific, specifically Melanesia and Polynesia. His close friends, Australian actress Elizabeth Betty" Bryant-Silverstein and her husband, a director, Maurice "Red" Silverstein, were inspired and decided to found the organization in 1968.

The strategy of the new non-governmental organization was developed in 1967 after a consulting visit to Melanesia and Polynesia, where a nine-volume report of the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific (FSP) was created.

The first office of FSP was officially inaugurated in 1968 in Sydney. The organization gradually became one of the leading NGOs in Australia.

The Foundation opened its office in the USA, which at present is known as Counterpart International.

In 1981, a new organisation was formed in place of the FSP Australia branch – the Australian Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific (AFSP). The organisation soon grew, expanding operations into Asia in the late 1980s and setting up an office in Hanoi, Vietnam in the mid-90s.[2] This was primarily thanks to the vision and tenacity of the executive director at the time, Harold Webber with his colleague Sandy Cross and other incredibly dedicated people. 1994, the name was changed to the Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP), to reflect the new regional focus.[3]

In 2018, the organisation changed its legal name to Action on Poverty Limited, trading as Action on Poverty (AOP), resulting in the name change of its Vietnam Representative Office to Action on Poverty (AOP) in Vietnam.[1]

Action on Poverty's Work

Action on Poverty empowers local changemakers to break the cycle of entrenched poverty in some of the poorest communities in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. AOP claims to connect local organisations with the resources and training they need to drive long-lasting change. AOP targets communities with a vision for change, and help them make the largest impact possible, e.g. through teaching an Ethiopian family to grow food and sending Cambodian girls to school.[4]

Programs

Regions

Action on Poverty has worked in over 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. AOP currently works in the countries listed below.

Pacific and Timor-Leste

  • Fiji
  • Kiribati
  • Solomon Islands
  • Timor-Leste

Africa

  • Ethiopia
  • Malawi
  • Mozambique
  • Tanzania
  • Zimbabwe

Asia

  • Bangladesh
  • Cambodia
  • Vietnam

References
  1. "Our new name - Action on Poverty". Action on Poverty. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  2. "Asia - Action on Poverty - Making hope possible". Action on Poverty. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  3. "50 Years of Action on Poverty - Action on Poverty". Action on Poverty. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  4. "Home - Action on Poverty - Making hope possible". Action on Poverty. Retrieved 13 November 2018.

This article is related to the List of non-governmental organizations in Vietnam.

  1. "AOP is the new name of AFAP | VUFO - NGO Resource Centre Vietnam". www.ngocentre.org.vn. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  2. "Action on Poverty – Action on CBT". actiononcbt.com. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  3. "Action on Poverty - Da Bac CBT". Da Bac CBT (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  4. "About AFAP". Retrieved 30 October 2018.
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