From the goats mouth ... !

So the eternal question: What do you buy for the number one woman in your life?

We asked young Joe Blayney, 14, from Mount Albert Grammar what about his decision to pick his mum an Oxfam Unwrapped gift for Mother's Day this year.

Being at school, Joe doesn’t have time for work, although he’s saved some money from helping out his dad. So the Oxfam Unwrapped range is perfect for him – plenty of presents under $20. He’ll usually splash out on some chocolate (fair trade, of course!), or even give her some of his school art work when he’s strapped for cash. But this year he's opted to give something a little bit different: a bunch of spicy hot chillis from Oxfam Unwrapped.

This is the first time Joe's given anyone an Oxfam Unwrapped gift. He said: "I picked Unwrapped because there's some really cool present ideas, I liked looking through the catalogue. I wanted to help the people the gifts benefit.”

Priced at just $15, Joe is gifting this fiery package in recognition of his mum's year-round sterling support. His mum is going to love it!

Joe's mum actually caught him browsing the Oxfam Unwrapped catalogue recently, but his swift response to why was that he was "looking into giving his brother a pile of poo". He'd love to see his brother's reaction, even though “he’d take it as a joke”.

• Make sure you check out the latest range of Mother's Day gifts, including our limited edition packs perfect for spoiling mum.

Hiromena Jose Elu is from East Timor. Here he's working on his composting pit.

Thanks to Oxfam, Hiromena and his wife have learnt about terracing, and vegetable gardening including planting, composting and organic pesticides. This has increased their food sources (more vegetables), and also provides income for the months of the year when their garden cannot produce crops.

He says: “We can plant vegetables and fruit so we can sell at the market and make some money. We can plant other fruit that previously we did not have here.

“We can make $3 or $4 everyday.”

The hungry season before Oxfam came was four months, but this has been reduced to two months since they have been trained in the new techniques.

Their vegetable garden produces crops for 2-3 months of the year. They can save the money they make from selling during this time to purchase vegetables when they have none at home.

Your gifts of Train a farmer and seeds make a huge difference to farmers like Hiromena.

Enoch and his family survived the bitter nine year Bougainville civil war by fleeing into the hills. After the conflict, they returned to their village to find it completely destroyed. Enoch knew good sanitation would be as vital for keeping the village children alive as protecting them from soldiers.

So with a little help from Oxfam, toilets became his practical, yet lifesaving, solution.

Sirovai village is on the coast of Central Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and the soil is very sandy. When residents first tried to dig pits for latrines, the ground just caved in.

With Oxfam's help, they devised a simple and ingenious solution: build a cylinder out of wood, coat it with cement, remove the original wood frame to use again, climb inside the cement cylinder, and dig out the soil.

The concrete liner sinks down into the ground and then a toilet slab and super structure can be built on top, completing the VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) latrine.

As an extra benefit to the community, Oxfam pays villagers to do the labour. When complete, there will be one toilet for each family in the village. You can support people like Enoch with Oxfam Unwrapped: buy the gift of a toilet today.

Despite being a tourist destination, Vanuatu is one of the poorest countries in Melanesia and faces many problems. A key issue is the absence of safe water and adequate sanitation, which causes poor health and disease and severely restricts rural communities’ economic and social development.

Less than 50 per cent of the rural population has access to a reliable, safe and fully functioning water supply.

Another 40 per cent only has access to a system that is in need of repair.

Adding to this problem is the destruction caused by cyclones, which frequently hit Vanuatu. These cyclones often destroy crops, roads and homes while polluting drinking water and waterways. Any water and sanitation facilities established in the country need to be cyclone-proof. By supporting Oxfam Unwrapped with our safe water gifts, you will be giving Vanuatuans a safe reliable source of this precious resource.