Growing and developing
The 1960s brought great changes. Concern for the world's poor grew among the general public and the charity's income trebled over the course of the decade. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Freedom from Hunger campaign aimed to combat food shortages by enabling people to grow enough to feed themselves rather than depend on food aid. By 1965, hundreds of local Freedom from Hunger groups had raised £7 million in the UK and helping to grow a dedicated supporter base for Oxfam.
Oxfam worked to present a different picture of poor people in the Third World: one in which they were portrayed as human beings with dignity, not as passive victims. Innovative education and information materials explained the root causes of poverty and suffering, the connections between North and South, and the role of people in the North in creating, and potentially solving, poverty in the developing world. Oxfam's overseas operations changed too. The major focus of work, managed by a growing network of Oxfam Field Directors, became support for self-help schemes whereby communities improved their own water supplies, farming practices, and health provision.
As Oxfam continued to expand its work through the 1970s, many new ideas and theories were put forward about development and poverty, including the decision to employ local people to run and work on projects. Oxfam's relief work in the Sahel in the late 1970s looked at the traditional ways in which communities survived - helping them to improve and refine their survival techniques, and making sure that the local people kept control of the schemes they were involved in. The same principles of community involvement and control are still behind Oxfam's work today.