- Child sponsorship
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Child sponsorship allows an individual, typically in a developed country, to sponsor, or fund a child in a developing country until the child becomes self-sufficient. This could mean financially supporting the education, health or security of the sponsored child, or in some cases all of these. This could also mean contributing more widely to the child's community developing without directly helping an individual child.
Contents
History
Save the Children was one of the first to begin a child sponsorship program, in 1932.[1] Children International (started in 1936),[2] Plan USA (started in 1937)[3] and ChildFund (started in 1938)[4] followed suit as the concept grew in popularity.
Two of the largest and most prominent Child Sponsorship organizations today are World Vision[5] (started in 1950, with over 4 million children registered in its sponsorship programs worldwide[6]) and Compassion International (started in 1952, with more than 1 million children enrolled).[7]
Child sponsorship process
After choosing a child to sponsor, the charitable organization that manages the sponsorship typically sends information about the child to the sponsor. These organizations direct money to, and manage communication between sponsored children and their sponsors, including translating letters, and in some cases ensuring that the communications are appropriate. Some organizations pay school fees and other educational needs for the sponsored children and hold a weekly club which includes a supplemental meal, educational and health topics, counseling, and sometimes inspirational teaching.
There is a distinct difference in how programs are operated. Some organizations have actual family homes where the children without parental care are housed, clothed, fed, educated, and nurtured, while others distribute funds to parents, and some, sign up all the children in the catchment area of a community development project such as a medical centre.
How sponsorship funds are used
Some major child sponsorship organizations use the funds given for community development and do not claim any direct benefit to the child. Others use the funds directly for the child and their immediate community or family, others again are somewhere in between, with the child benefiting from a wider community project such as a school or medical centre.
Critics have argued that child sponsorship could alienate the relatively privileged sponsored children from their peers and may perpetuate harmful stereotypes about third-world citizens being helpless. They also claim that child sponsorship causes cultural confusion and unrealistic aspirations on the part of the recipient, and that child sponsorship is expensive to administer.[8][9] This latter problem has led some charities to offer information about a "typical" child to sponsors rather than one specifically supported by the sponsor.
Organizations
Many organizations run child sponsorship programs all over the world in 3rd world countries, including 35 based in the UK alone. Some of the more notable ones are:
- Abaana
- Action Aid
- Baptist World Aid
- Barnardo's
- Child In Need Institute (CINI)
- ChildFund International
- Children International
- Compassion International
- Every Child Ministries
- Food for the Hungry
- Gospel for Asia
- International Childcare Trust
- Partners in Aid
- Plan
- Save the Children
- SOS Children
- World Vision
- Worldwide Faith Missions
References
- ^ Save the Children "History", accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ Children International Website "About Us" accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ Plan USA [1], accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ Child Fund "About Us", accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ World Vision "Who We Are", accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ World Vision "2010 Financial Highlights", accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ Compassion International "About Us", accessed February 2, 2011
- ^ Simply...Why you should not sponsor a child, New Internationalist, April 1989.
- ^ Peter Stalker, Please do not sponsor this child, New Internationalist, May 1982
External links
- The Rough Guide to a Better World a UK government publication reviewing some types of sponsorship, including arguments for and against.
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