Child Sponsorship

What is child sponsorship, how does it work, and what can you do with it? Fisrt of all, I have to admit that I'm a massive fan of child sponsorship. I currently have seven sponsored children of my own, in seven different countries. I started sponsoring when I was 16 and have been addicted ever since.

The basics - how does it work?

I can only speak for the situation here in Australia, but (as far as I know) it works in a similar fashion in other countries. I would be very interested to hear from sponsors in other countries with any similarities or differences! But basically you pay a set amount per month for each child. Here in Australia, the rate is currently $43 a month. Now the biggest myth going around is that the money goes to your sponsored child. It doesn't. It goes to the community of the child. In any one community, there will be several children that are sponsored. The money collected from all of the sponsors is pooled together, and is used in ways to benefit the whole community. I have heard people concerned that one child will be rich and well fell because he or she is sponsored, while other neighbouring children will continue to be impoverished. But this is just not the way it works - and I'm glad for that. So the money goes towards the community's health care systems, schools, water, and community facilities such as halls and churches.

So what does the child get?

Ah - this is the clinker right here. This is why I sponsor, right here. The sponsored child gets something so important, so valuable, that money can't buy it. They get to know that there is someone, a stranger, in another country so far away that they can't comprehend it, who cares about them. Someone who goes out of their way to help them. Can you imagine how important and valuable this would be to a child? I can't, really, because I grew up with a loving, supportive family, always feeling safe and secure. But if you didn't have that amount of security, and weren't always sure where your next meal was coming from, or if you would be able to go to school tomorrow, and pretty much knew that there is no way you'll ever go to college, imagine what it might mean to have someone in another country tell you that they care about you.

When I was 16 I started sponsored a little boy in Kenya. I sent my money each month (it was considerabnly less back then! Only $31 a month), and worried that I might be late with my payments. But when I got letters from my child (and boy, did I get a lot of letters!) he never mentioned the money, or what it was doing to help him, his family or the community. He would instead say things like ‘thankyou for your care', ‘my family is happy with you', ‘I welcome you into my family' and ‘thankyou for the love that you give me'.

Years later, I spoke to a woman who had been overseas and had met with a group of African mothers, whose children had all been sponsored. When asked what was the best thing about having their children sponsored, they all answered that it was the letters that they received from the sponsors. They never mentioned the money, just the fact that they knew the sponsors cared for their child and the whole family.

Of course the monthly payments need to be made. There absolutely needs to be the monetary component, otherwise the program won't work. But my point is that, to the children and their families, it's the letters and personal contact that means the most.

Now that I have seven sponsored children, I often forget to write letters. The act of writing letters to my sponsored kids often looks like an assembly line - 7 letters, 7 envelopes, 7 packets of stickers, 7 little packets of pencils... It often feels like too much work. And the postage can be expensive. I often feel ashamed that I may not have written for several months, even though I've been keeping up my payments. But it's not about that, and I often need to be reminded of this.

My New Years resolution for 2008 is to write lots of letters to my kids - so that they always know that someone cares for them.

That's all from me for today

Comments and general ramblings are, as always, welcome!