OUR CHILDREN - to sponsor a child, click on each of the country flags on this page to see details of children needing sponsorship in that country. We are working in difficult and poverty-stricken countries, many of whom have had severe and recent war.  Families have been torn apart and most have experienced death.  How can World in Need make a positive and on-going impact on these people who have suffered so much?   The training of children in preparation of learning to make a living for the family is priority for our sponsorship programme.  We sponsor children with the stipulation that the child must go to school.  £20 per month pays school fees, buys uniforms, books and school tools.  Because the sponsor pays £20 every month, the child no longer has the insecurity that he will have to leave as the money runs out.   World in Need takes just 10% of the sponsorship fees for the necessary administration to run the programme.  The rest goes to each of the 15 countries to distribute to specific children.  £30 per month will sponsor an entire family, providing food and essentials for impoverished families.  All special gifts have no admin taken and the full gift goes directly to the child or family.   In the 8 years the sponsorship programme has been operating, we have seen wonderful changes in some of our young lives.  In Afghanistan a young widow called N. had just returned from Pakistan where she, her husband and five children sought refuge.  Her husband was blown apart by a bomb and she was left with five children to feed.  Returning to Kabul she sought work cleaning stone floors, sweeping the streets and washing neighbour’s clothes.  She could not earn enough to feed her five children and pay the rent to her one room accommodation though she was sponsored by one family.  She told us she would have to put her two younger children in an orphanage, where she knew they would at least have food.  Our representative begged her not to and that WIN would find a second sponsor to support her.  The second sponsorship helped her just to survive.  The eldest daughter is now married and the rest are in school – doing well and learning.  N. wants to give back to her community some of what she gained through sponsorship, and she has now started a literacy class of 20 children in her one room hut, teaching unschooled children to read and write.  Her entire demeanour is different.  She has regained lost dignity and she walks head high in a neighbourhood that now looks up to her with gratitude.   Northern Uganda has seen some of the most cruel treatment of humans known in the area.  Young boys were abducted by rebels, taught to kill and sent back to their villages to slaughter friends and families.  Very young girls were abducted, taken to the rebel camps and raped repeatedly for months.  When released and returned to their villages, they were so traumatised they could not function.  Our Northern Ugandan representative took a number of these victims into his own home to show care, love and to get counselling, with the view of their returning to their community and returning to school.  It’s been a long and difficult path for them, but as each was sponsored by loving sponsors, one by one these children are relearning self acceptance and are returning their families and to school.   To tell you of the many, many more children and families who are being lifted from impossible situations and through sponsorship now have hope and a future – we would run out of space.     Is sponsoring worthwhile?   A resounding YES as it remains the most consistent and caring way to change a family or child’s life – giving hope instead of despair.  And this is at a cost of £0 .66 per day!         To sponsor a child, click on each of the country flags on this page to see details of children needing sponsorship in that country.

 

 

 

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