When you sponsor a child, you can help to change their world. World Vision’s Child Sponsorship Program helps children living in disadvantaged regions to escape poverty.

Experience has taught us that the best way to change a child’s life is to transform the world in which they live – their family, their community and the local area.

As a child sponsor, you partner with us as we work with local families, community groups and governments in breaking the cycle of poverty and creating long-term change. Using your donations, we identify the causes of the child’s poverty and vulnerability, and create development projects designed to address them.

Our goal is that all children in the community will benefit from our work, which can include improved healthcare, education, water, sanitation and food. There are so many wonderful stories of sponsored children who’ve grown up healthy and happy – thanks to generous people like you.

The selection of children for sponsorship is a respectful process that happens in partnership with their community.

We work with community representatives to identify the local areas where the needs are greatest and the community then chooses children from those areas for sponsorship. Sponsored children are chosen from the most vulnerable families and being sponsored often gives them increased visibility and importance in the community.

Participation in all World Vision programs is voluntary, and sponsored children and their families choose to be a part of the program. We always respect the rights of families to make decisions about this.

Your sponsored child, along with other children in their community, benefits from the changes made possible by your donations.

Supporters often tell us that the best part of sponsoring children is seeing the real difference they are making in a child's life. And the best place to see this change unfold is My World Vision – your personal window into your sponsored child’s world.

Writing to your sponsored child is also a great way to learn more about them and the difference you are helping to make in their community.

Most sponsored children love to receive letters and cards from their sponsors. It can be a great source of encouragement for them to know that someone far away cares about them and their future.

There are three ways to correspond and build a connection with your sponsored child:

1. Send a greeting card or letter supplied by World Vision. To make it easy to keep in touch, several times a year you’ll be given the opportunity to send them a card or letter – including at Christmas and for their birthday.

2. Send an eLetter to your sponsored child via the My World Vision website. It’s a quick and easy way to write to your sponsored child. Your eLetter will be sent to the World Vision office in your sponsored child’s country. It will be printed, translated and passed on to your sponsored child. You’ll receive your response via regular print post.

3. Write a letter or card and post it to your sponsored child. Many sponsors send a letter, card or postcard directly to their sponsored child's country. You can do this any time. Information and guidelines on writing to your sponsored child can be viewed here.

Your sponsored child and their family are part of a World Vision program that takes place in a defined area – usually home to around 20,000 people or more. We call this an Area Development Program (ADP).

To start an ADP, first an area is identified where children and families are suffering because of poverty. We work with community representatives to identify local areas that have the greatest need.

Afterwards, the decision to commence a sponsorship program is made with the community. An assessment is carried out by local World Vision staff alongside community representatives, local authorities and other non-government organisations in the area.

Before we commence a sponsorship program, the following things must be in place:

• community understanding and commitment to the program; and
• a basic level of security and stability in the community, access to remote parts of the community and basic communications so that we can regularly visit and monitor children’s wellbeing.

We work with the local people to help them develop and carry out projects to improve children’s wellbeing in the long term. That’s where your support as a child sponsor can make such a difference – supporting projects and activities that can transform the world where your sponsored child lives.