Agent TypeOrganisationActivities & OccupationsWelfare organisationsHistoryCommunity Aid Abroad was founded in the early 1950s by Father Gerard Kennedy Tucker, an Anglican clergyman who had previously founded the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 1931. Concerned about the needs of the poor in newly decolonized nations such as India and Indonesia, he began to speak of his concerns at meetings, rallies and church congregations. Weekly collections were taken that were sent to a hospital in India. Hearing him speak, some women in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn established a local group known as the Food for Peace Campaign in 1954. Other groups soon formed in Melbourne and Victoria and in 1962 a full-time Director was appointed and the name of the Campaign changed to Community Aid Abroad. The new name included the idea of assisting overseas communities rather than donating food alone. The activities of CAA soon spread and groups were established in Adelaide (1964), Sydney (1966) and Perth (1972). By the mid 1960s, CAA had begun to lobby for an increase in the volume of Australian government aid and to allocate some of its income to educational activities. In 1972, it became the Australian affiliate of the international Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam).
![[1986.0152] Records of the Community Aid Abroad](/img/placeholder.gif?1768172494 "[1986.0152] Records of the Community Aid Abroad")