Overview

Colleagues in UK, Italy, Sweden, Greece. contact individuals interested to involve with ActionAid's work. These generous souls meet children through individual photos and short descriptions of the child's community. Brief on her/his culture and interests make the 'profile' win hearts. This is the first of many communications from a child. The sponsor willing to bring positive change to the child's life, and through her the community, writes back and commits to contribute a nominal monthly amount to our Affiliates, who in turn fund our annual work that engage and benefit the child and the community.

ActionAid operates in over 45 countries, as of 2015. Beyond its direct presence, as a global federation we are working with more than 45 million people living in over 75 countries. Since 1983, we have made use of child sponsorship to mandate our focus on children and women in Bangladesh. This open-to-use fund has proved to be much better than anything restricted by an outline. Child sponsorship creates avenues for long-term solutions to poverty while also providing a healthy and safe space for children’s overall growth.

Helping women and girls is the best way to end global poverty. Child sponsorship is the first step towards achieving this goal. Starting with children – not just girls, but boys too – and including their parents in our drive to empower and unite people for greater things to happen.

With consent from their parents, a child joins us when they are between 4 and 6 years of age. We maintain ‘child protection’ standards to engage them in fun activities such as scribbling, singing and others. Collected photos and information are sent to sponsors. Are they only sponsors? Parents or guardians would be better suited to describe the warmth of the bond. These new parents reply and communicate with letters and photos to exchange a glimpse of their lives and personal interests. They also remember the child’s birthday and sometimes send gifts. And when a sponsor meets her/his sponsored child, one can only imagine the range of emotions that take place when they see each other for the first time.

Nearly 60% of our sponsors are women mostly engaged in teaching. Middleclass to their home crowd, most of these individuals from the North are middle-aged. We also gladly see many young people caringenough to join ActionAid to together build lives in the South.

Thanks to the beauty of sponsorship, we can deliver on what the community needs. Thanks to our supporters and rural communities, our work brings return in soulful ways. Children getting back to a better school, and eating healthy as a result of their parents' increased earning capacity, community yielding bumper crop after renovating an embankment, local government developing annual plan after actually listening to people's needs, national campaign against child marriage, women's exclusion etc. are a few examples.

Throughout the relationship, the child writes letters to her/his friend through us. As sweet and touchy the letters are, with scribbles and leaves or flower petals, they also capture the growth of the child the sponsor begins to care more about. We add with the letter a detailed report twice a year sharing how the money was spent to help improve people's lives. The whole experience gives our valued friends a sense of fulfilment.