SPONSORSHIP FAQS

Your sponsorship supports projects run by our Christian partners. These projects help children learn to break down the barriers of poverty – not just for your sponsored child, but for their friends and family too! Children and families together learn skills to increase their income, build confidence and take control of their future.

The projects encourage children to be part of the solution to poverty. When children choose to become involved with the project, they learn to drive change in their own community. Their special connection with a sponsor in Australia is a chance for them to share their story as they learn and grow.

Some of the activities include:

• Child groups where children spend time with their friends and learn to run their own community development projects.
• Training for parents, like kitchen gardening and learning about nutrition, which helps them provide a healthy diet for their children.
• Working with schools to improve the education that is available to all children.
• Advocating for change with local government and leadership groups.

All these initiatives, and more, provide children with opportunities for a future free from poverty.

We know that our program has worked when we can hand a project over to the community leaders. As communities take over the management of their own projects, our child sponsorship program moves into new locations. Each project lasts around 10 years.

When you support a child, they may be at the beginning, middle or end of their project’s cycle. Your child sponsorship reports will tell you the current phase of the project.

When the project has been successful, it looks like this:

All the children in the community go to school every day. They have enough healthy food to eat, and so do their families. They speak out on issues that concern them and take responsibility for their own future. Their families have enough income to afford school fees, food and health care as well as extra money to cope in emergencies. And the community leadership protects children, advocates for further change, and takes responsibility for their own development.

If you would like to learn more about child sponsorship graduations, go to our Graduations page.

That’s one of the great things about our child sponsorship program – it’s designed not just for the child you support, but for all the children in the community to benefit. So, when you choose to become a Child Sponsor, you’re actually choosing to support a whole community of children. And we can help you choose if you can’t decide.

We don’t! The communities themselves select children as representatives of the program. These children become leaders in their community and play an important role in communicating the changes that are happening. Each child is linked with only one child sponsor.

A child doesn’t have to be sponsored to be part of the program. And sponsored children do not receive special treatment. Rather, our project activities are designed to address the root causes of child poverty, working with the entire community. This approach means that the community becomes a better place for all children, not just those who are sponsored.

The program is offered with a “no strings attached” policy. This means that communities can be part of the program regardless of race, politics or religion and there are no conditions placed on the community to conform to any culture, politics or religion.

We publish reports every year to show the total amount Baptist World Aid spends on projects overseas. See our Annual Reports for the complete picture.

For $48/m you’ll be supporting a child or young person, their family and their community to address challenges specific to them. Your monthly gift will support child-led projects run by our Christian partners – helping children and young people raise their villages and lead them into a future free from extreme poverty.

For just $12 more each month, you can contribute to additional project activities that protect the most vulnerable children in Child Sponsorship communities.

Your sponsorship is providing vital support as the impact of virus continues to spread around the world. We are working closely with our Christian partners in the field to monitor and respond to the situation in each community. For regularly updated country by country news from the field and virus specific FAQs, please visit our updates page.

VERY EFFECTIVE! Your generous sponsorship supports development work that will not only benefit your sponsored child… but also their friends, family, and whole community! And life-skills for children, income generation for families, and safer, flourishing communities translate to lasting change for generations to come.

But you don’t have to take our word for it alone . . . Sima is a little girl who lives in one of our project communities in Nepal. Read her story to find out just how effective your Child Sponsorship can be! Read what she had to say.

Child safeguarding is important to Baptist World Aid. Through your regular sponsorship you have already enabled life-saving hygiene training, with child clubs teaching the importance of practices such as handwashing. Our partners also have experience implementing child protection activities. These activities are now being implemented using mobile technology, building on the skills and strong community relationships that have been developed through our projects.

Baptist World Aid is responding by supporting partners to shift their activities towards a more humanitarian response. Our priority is making sure that partner staff and community members from our projects are safe.

Our partner organisations are working hard to support children, families and communities to respond to the risk of COVID, including through the distribution of health, hygiene and safety information. To reduce further risk of outbreaks, we have suspended large group gatherings and activities such as child clubs, savings groups, and graduation ceremonies. Through our COVID 19 Global Emergency Appeal, we are helping organisations to support health workers, conduct food and non-food distribution to vulnerable people, and provide protective equipment. We are working closely with our partners to monitor the situation, adapt activities, and make preparations for the recovery period, when enforced isolation ends and social and economic activities can resume.

COVID and social distancing measures carry a range of impacts for children, youth and their communities. The closure of schools has the potential to increase dropout rates, especially for girls, and to further entrench gender gaps in education. At the same time, school closures may increase the likelihood of child abuse, trafficking, and child labour.

The economic impacts of parents or caregivers being out of work, is expected to be widespread and devastating.

As COVID cases increase, the burden on health systems in resource-poor settings will be immense. Clinics and hospitals will be overcrowded and overwhelmed. Other basic services such as immunisation programs, primary health care, and community-based maternal and child health activities will be disrupted. Even before COVID, many children in sponsorship countries lacked access to clean water and sanitation to prevent the spread of disease. If caregivers get sick or die from the coronavirus, children will be at an increased risk of malnutrition, various diseases, and child protection violations.

Beyond physical health, social distancing also has impacts upon mental health and wellbeing. The pandemic is placing increased stress on families, community groups and governments. This may mean an inability to carry out daily tasks (such as caring for children), increased abusive behaviour, anxiety or grief at the loss of a loved one.

All emergency responses, including how sponsorship communities are being equipped, are enabled through the COVID-19 Global Emergency Appeal. To help protect more sponsored children and their communities and stop the rapid spread of the virus, why not give your most important gift ever?

Give now

Your prayer support during this uncertain time is more important than ever before. Please pray with us for all the children involved in our projects, as their education, health and wellbeing are impacted by COVID:

• Pray for children and their families. Because children are always especially vulnerable in times of crisis. Thank God – He loves these children and does not forsake them. Pray that He would use you as an advocate for their needs. Thank Him that your prayers and support make a difference.
• Pray for sponsored children. Praise God! There have been no reported cases of COVID among your sponsored children in the communities where Baptist World Aid works. Pray for God’s continued protection!
• Pray that children would not go hungry. Pray for the food relief that our local partners are providing families, particularly in the poorest communities of the Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. Hunger is one of the biggest threats to vulnerable families who have lost what little income they had due to the lockdown. Pray that children are receiving the nourishment they need.
• Pray for children’s safety. Pray that God would protect children who are not safe in their homes. As you know, being in lockdown is dangerous for children who experience violence and abuse at the hands of someone in their household. Ask God to shield and protect the most vulnerable children.
• Pray for children with other vulnerabilities. Pray for children whose safety and wellbeing are already deeply compromised – children in refugee camps, children living with disability and chronic illnesses, and those in child marriages or exploitation. It is already difficult for these children to receive the care they need . . . and now they’re also facing COVID.
• Pray for children’s education. Pray that children would continue learning, even when not at school. Closing schools is a vital decision in fighting the spread of COVID and protecting children and teachers. But it also significantly interrupts education, as many families living in poverty are not set up for remote learning.

You are welcome to write to your sponsored child whenever you like! However, to lower our administration costs, we send your letters overseas four times a year. Please make sure your mail reaches us by the following deadlines: 28 February; 30 June; and 31 October. The October deadline is best for Christmas greetings!

Click here for more, handy letter writing tips!

Please send your physical letters to:

Baptist World Aid Australia
Locked Bag 2200
North Ryde, NSW, 1670.

You can also write to your sponsored child online, by signing into (or creating) your supporter account.

Click here for more, handy letter writing tips!