Around the world, more than 400,000 children are sponsored by generous Australians through World Vision. Their long-term support is helping to create positive changes, not just in the lives of the individual children they sponsor, but in the lives of families and communities for generations to come.

Here's a look at the lives of four sponsored children and at some of the initiatives taking place in World Vision community development programs worldwide.

Atnafu

Atnafu, 8, lives with his family in an Ethiopian village. His widowed mother Yezina was struggling to feed the children, but as a result of an income generating scheme she was able to buy livestock including a milking cow.

Now the children have milk to drink and the remainder earns the family about $10 a month to buy food and other essentials.Yezina is saving to buy oxen so that she can work her farmland and strengthen the family's financial position.

Kholganat

Before World Vision arrived in Kholganat's community in Mongolia, his father Nyetbek struggled to support the family on a welding assistant’s income. As a result of program activities, Kholganat, aged 9, can now go to school and receive healthcare when he is sick.

His mother Mart sews traditional Kazakh embroidery and with World Vision's help she has started selling her work to increase the family's income. Nyetbek’s wish of sending all his children to university may yet come true.

Elias

Elias, 8, lives with his family in rural Uganda. They receive regular visits from William, a community health worker trained by World Vision to provide basic treatment and to educate local families on health and hygiene issues.

“When I had a headache, he (William) came home and brought me tablets to swallow. He comforted me and advised my mother to take me to the clinic for a check up. The time I fell sick with a cough, he used his bicycle to take me to the clinic,” said Elias.

Elias’ community has also built boreholes and shallow wells with World Vision’s help. The school he goes to now has a rainwater tank and two latrines.

Martha

Martha’s family, like others in her Ethiopian village, makes a living by breeding animals and growing crops. World Vision has worked with the community to construct a school, a health centre and water and irrigation facilities.

“Martha is a lucky girl," says her mother of the opportunities now unfolding for her 12-year-old daughter. Martha is determined to do well in school because she wants to become a doctor when she grows up.

World Vision believes that the most powerful way to improve the wellbeing of children is to change the world in which they live. Child sponsors are critical partners in this process of transformation.