To ask if anyone sponsors a child

[Bellavida99]

I just saw an advert where you can sponsor a specific girl abroad and get letters from them etc. it sounds great and really worthwhile but for some reason I’ve not heard of this before so would love to hear if it’s legit etc. thanks

We do through compassion. Definitely legit. My kids enjoy writing back.

I sponsored a girl in El Salvador through Plan International 25 years ago for a few years. We sent her presents and she wrote and sent pictures. As I understood it we were sponsoring her to stay at school but it transpired that she dropped out of school two years in but I think we paid for 6 years and they never said. So I don't think it is really for specific children. As I'm not sure how she would have benefited if not in a school.

I wanted to do this, but I wanted to choose a specific country. I was told that wasn’t possible as it’s not fair to the kids. I just donate through other means now.

Do you work? Your workplace may have match funding in place i.e. if you pay £15 pm, work will pay £15 too, and the charity/child gets £30 (plus Gift Aid).

Personally, I’m quite uncomfortable with the idea of some poor kid in a developing country being strong-armed by whichever charity to write to their benevolent sponsor. There’s a very transactional nature and unequal power dynamic to it, so I prefer to give to project-based work or micro-investment.

I've sponsored a boy in Honduras for the last 15 years or so. We're on our 2nd one, as the first one finished school.

As i understand it, they "allocate" you a child who is your adoptee, but actually all the money goes into a big pot, and is allocated to a whole village.

You can always say you prefer not to get letters.

We have said we don't want letters etc. And we could pick if we wanted a boy or girl, and where (as in which project/country). It's World Vision.

I’ve sponsored through Plan for around 25 years. When the child reaches 18, you can a new one

It’s been a really lovely thing to do, to learn about rural life in another country I would never have otherwise heard about, and get an occasional letter and photo

The letters are mostly written by the local charity parter including quotes from the child and family, and are general ‘it’s harvest season, we have been learning maths’ sort of stuff rather than swooping and bowing thanks
It doesn’t feel forced

I used to sponsor various children through Plan International. At the time that I did so (I stopped several years ago), you could request a specific country and I think you could state a preference as to the sex of the child, though they wouldn't guarantee that.

You would get updates about the child and the community, but the child was only encouraged to write to you if you wrote to them. Of course most of the children wouldn't actually write anything but I'd get small drawings from them and some of the older children in South America would send hand written stuff with a translation from a community worker.

If you sponsor through Plan, the money does not go to that specific child, but to the community for community projects. They state, and I agree, that sponsoring individual children can cause worse inequities within the community, plus jealousies etc. So sponsoring a child to remain in school might actually mean that your money is going to help build the fabric of the school, or to provide books, or pay a teacher -- all of which will of course help children to go to school, but perhaps not "your" child specifically. I think they choose volunteer children from a sponsored community to act as sort of "figureheads".

Id always rather donate to large charities who can undertake big investment/infrastructure projects than channel micro amounts to individuals.

Micro loans especially I detest, they are often used badly and lead to debt cycles.

The best use of charitable funding would be massive funds used for things like building roads/schools/hospitals, building safe clean toilets & wells, putting in mobile phone & internet infrastructure, vaccinating etc.

Not any of these schemes claiming to train women to use sewing machines or buy a single cow etc, they don't really improve the economy of the country.

Same. I feel super uncomfortable with it. I don't want any child to need to think about how/why they are in school/have enough to eat etc, I certainly don't want to be thanked for it.

I have been doing this with Plan for nearly 20 years. The money goes to onfoing projects in the area where the child lives, it might go towards building a well, or for equipment for a school, so the whole community benefits. We get a photo and updates on the child every now and again, they are not written by her but by a project worker who works with the family. They will usually just give an update on the child and her family, their health, how they are getting on at school, stuff like that, it's not very specific or invasive.

Maybe. But schoolkids in the UK get quite used to random 'Write a letter...' projects, and in 20-ish years of sponsoring, we've had some absolute corkers of letters from the kids. The child who was forced to leave school, and then excitedly wrote again to say that she had been allowed to go back, was a delight to hear from, thoughtful and hardworking and wise. We sponsored her from 8 to 18 and miss hearing from her.

The current 7-year-old started her last letter with 'Hello my University Friends! I am at school!!! I like writing!!!' (punctuation hers). Good luck strong-arming that one into anything, I'd say.

We sponsor a child, and yes, I believe it is legit. The first one, we got a letter after a year stating that she had gone to live with her mother, so no longer needed the assistance from the charity, and we were then matched with another girl. We;ve been doing it for 7 years

Plan International let you pick a specific country (as long as they already work there)

https://plan-uk.org/sponsor-a-child

I'm surprised you don't hear from the child, Deadringer, as we usually do get something from a named family (though the amount varies from 'I liked my postcard' to whole pages).

I sponsor through World Vision and have done for over 30 years. Interestingly I ended up working with them on a project overseas and was impressed with the work they were doing.

i prefer smaller charities who are experts in their area (geographical) and what they are doing.
I've not really looked into micro loans, i prefer to make a no-strings donation.

I do.

Our first child we sponsored, I'm so proud of her. She went from a really bad time, was taken into the boarding house, worked her socks off through school, and is now in social work helping children who were like her. She has beaten all the odds to achieve everything.
She's a fantastic artist, very clever, and compassionate to all others.
She is absolutely amazing and I feel so lucky to have been able to follow her as she grew up from a scared little girl to a wonderful young lady.
We're now Facebook friends, and I feel a rush of pride when she posts what she is doing.

It's just a marketing thing. The money just goes into a pot. Sometimes (rarely) into a small pot for a village or project, usually just into the charities' main coffers.

But it brings in a regular donation from people who wouldn't dream of just donating £20 a month for ten years or whatever. So fundraisers gotta do what fundraisers gotta do, and I have no problem with them using psychological strategies to hook people in.

Also on the upside, it probably makes donors empathise and 'get' that that's people who the charity is helping, are real.

I get that it's nice to feel a connection to where the money's going. I'm involved and support some small local projects in a village I know and visit regularly in east Africa. I'm much more motivated to help the projects because of that connection, and knowing those people. So I'm not immune to that psychology either.

I'm not over fond of the sponsoring a child thing, but as long as you recognise that the money isn't actually going to the child or their family directly, and you choose the charity wisely, go for it. Your cash is needed..

I sponsor a child through compassion. Works really well. You can choose the country if you want to.

A girl I know does. Seems lovely but there's always something slightly off with the forced smile pics she posts of them holding the stuff she's sent.

Yes it goes into a pot but I sponsored an individual because I wanted my kids to build a connection. Our sponsored child grew up and left and now I just send the same amount of money.

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't done the sponsored child thing. It seems a lot of pressure on one kid to have to send you letters and photos in return for their village getting funding.

Thanks everyone really interesting to hear everyone’s views. It was Plan I saw the advert for but I’ll look at others too. I think it would be lovely to actually hear from the child you sponsor but I did wonder about inequality etc. if not every child in a neighbourhood is sponsored so it makes perfect sense the money is used for projects in that area rather than the specific child. I’m still in 2 minds if this type of giving does more good than giving to the huge charities it’s the type of thing it’s almost impossible to quantify. The advert I saw was particularly about sponsoring girls to help them stay in education, not be forced into child marriage, FGM etc. but I’m not sure how monthly donations specifically help with these issues. It’s so difficult. And I’ll definitely look into the salary sacrifice giving for this as I know we can do it with some charities.

I used to do it some years ago for a boy in Bangladesh to fund his schooling. we used to get letters and drawings. I can't remember which charity it was through though.