Once a child is fully enrolled in our sponsorship program, each of our partner countries begin working to link the child with a sponsor. While this occurs, the staff in our Ghana country office and at our church partners begin praying for kindhearted individuals to see the pictures of the children and pick them up for sponsorship.

Our Communications Department is one of the first areas to learn that a child has a sponsor. They receive a regularly generated list of children who have new sponsors. A copy of the list is printed out, together with an age-graded, first-letter pad bearing a bar code with sponsor and child details on it. This is placed in the “pigeon holes” of the respective child development centers whose children have new sponsors.

The next center worker to visit the country office picks up the material from the holes and brings it to the center where the child notification process is carried out.

“Any time we come to the country office and find this list, we become very happy,” says Fredrick, the center coordinator for Victory Assemblies Child Development Center.

At the center the list is filed in a special folder that has been created to hold the new assignment list. The next step is to go to the child’s home and inform the family about the sponsorship.

Every child who receives a sponsor must write a first letter of introduction. This letter must contain detailed information about the child and the family. Some of this information the child may not know. So as part of the notification process, the center worker takes down all the information needed to complete the first letter later.

The worker takes down the names of the parents, the names and ages of all the children in the family, and the work the caregivers do, among other things.

Children who cannot write their letters are assisted by center staff. When the letters are written, they are returned to the country office.

In Ghana, this first letter has a deadline, which is one week. This means the letter is to be submitted to the country office no later than one week after collection so the Sponsor Donor Services Associate in the Communications Department has ample time to check it and ensure that the letter meets all standards before packaging and subsequent mailing to Colorado Springs.

From Colorado Springs, the child’s first letter is then sent to the sponsor’s country, where it is mailed to the sponsor, and communication commences between sponsor and child.

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Fadilatou’s father was a driver, but is now too old to work, so he stays at home all day taking care of his grandchildren.

Her mother is a hairdresser and provides food for all the family with her income of less than $2 a day. Sometimes the mother goes to bed without eating, so the rest of the family can share the little food she has gathered.

In 2004 Fadilatou enrolled at the Assemblies of God Patte d’Oie Child Development Center. Her father was not for it because he did not know about the ministry of Compassion, but her mother insisted and convinced him to allow the girl to be part of the program.

Since she joined, Fadilatou has been the top pupil in class. She dreams of going to a military academy next year. “I would like to become minister of defense of the country,” Fadilatou tells her parents.

Her dream started when she joined Compassion and was taken good care of. But the girl’s parents could not believe this might be a realistic dream; they are poor and know no one capable of supporting their child. But since December 2009 Fadilatou’s parents have started believing in her dream.

Every year the Primary School Education Department of Burkina Faso organizes an Excellency contest. In 2009 Fadilatou ranked second in the contest. She received a prize for her performance, but was far from imagining that something greater was coming her way.

A worldwide conference was to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The mayor of Ballerup, a municipality of Copenhagen, did not want to leave children out of the event. So he organized a worldwide meeting for children from 10 to 12 years old called “Things Talk: The Creative Climate Camp.”

An invitation was sent by the mayor of Ballerup to the mayor of Ouagadougou to have five children partake in the camp.

The department in charge of the promotion of education was entrusted with the mission to select the five children. They decided to consider the results of the Excellency contest. So they chose the best pupil of each of the five administrative divisions of the capital.

Fadilatou was the top pupil of her administrative division, called Bogodogo, and she was the second at the country level. So, Fadilatou was among the happy five who would have the opportunity of a lifetime to travel abroad in a plane. But this was only true for Fadilatou, who was from a poor family where parents could hardly provide for daily food.

All the four other children were from well-off families. Some even had home teachers who were helping them understand their school lessons. As for Fadilatou, God and her church were her help and support.

For a whole month the top five pupils of the capital city took part in a training session at the craft industry of Ouagadougou. Some professional craft people taught them how to make toys out of cans and other salvaged materials.

The objective of the training was to help the children learn to be active in clearing organic waste out of nature, and transforming waste into functional objects. This to make sure these children would have something to share when they met with the other children of the world.

The general objective of the camp in Copenhagen was to combine art with the imagination of children to identify innovative methods, actions and teaching about global warming.

As the children were busy getting ready for their trip to Ballerup, Fadilatou was facing a big problem. She did not have a passport. The four other children did not also have passports, but as they were from wealthy families this was not to be a big issue for them.

The mayor of Ouagadougou decided to pay for all passport expenses for the children. But the parents had to pay first and be reimbursed later. Definitely Fadilatou was an outsider; her parents could not find $50 to pre-fund their daughter’s passport.

Fadilatou’s development center was ready to disburse the necessary amount for the child’s passport, but one of Fadilatou’s big brothers, who is a mechanic working in Bobo (360 km from Ouagadougou), decided to give the necessary amount for his little sister’s passport.

Because Fadilatou was from a poor family and seemed not to have someone who could stand for her, she was about to be replaced by another child. The center director worked hard to keep the girl’s name in the list.

December 1 was the departure day. The center staff bought some suitable clothes for Fadilatou and also gave her some pocket money.

At 7 p.m. Fadilatou was at the airport accompanied by her mother and the center director. It was her very first time to enter the airport gates. Her father was so afraid that he could not go with her to the airport. He stayed home asking God to bring his child back safe.

The five children from Burkina and the guide who accompanied them constituted the only African delegation among the 16 countries that effectively took part in the camp.

In Ballerup, Fadilatou and her friends got the opportunity to make various objects from cans and other waste that the population of the city appreciated.

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In 2008, when the church began partnering with Compassion, Pastor Korogo was recruited as child development center director because of his long-standing experience in the ministry among the children of his church.

The development center has 220 registered children who take part regularly in center activities. Like all the other centers in the country, it is located in an area where poverty is visible in people’s daily lives.

The great majority of the population does not have access to drinking water or electricity. When someone in these families falls ill, he is cared for with indigenous methods, as families can’t afford medical care or drugs at the pharmacy.

The child development center is located in a community that is nearly 70 percent Islamic. The largest mosque in the city is 10 meters from the church that shelters the center. This proximity sometimes makes it difficult for Muslim children to effectively take part in the center activities.

“Several parents withdrew their children from the center because they were convinced by their religious leaders that the objective of the center was to convert their children to Christianity. What these parents were afraid of was that their children would be taken away by the church.” — Pastor Korogo

The center workers continue to take care of the children who come to the church on Thursdays. The radical change in the lives of these little ones has convinced more than one parent of the great opportunity their children have in coming to the center.

As a result, the Muslim community lives in harmony with the Christian community. Today, more than 70 percent of the children registered at the center are from Muslim families who still encourage the children to persevere in their participation in the activities.

This happy situation is largely the result of the frank relationship of love that exists between the children and their sponsors. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the joy that fills a child and his family when the child receives a personal letter written from abroad.

In nearly all families, these letters are preciously kept and shown to the important visitors, demonstrating the pride the family has in being known beyond the borders of the country. This restores the image of the whole family, even if this family was “watched out of the corner of the eye” by members of the community.

When a child does not receive letters, the relationship is weakened a little. So the relationship must be dynamic. Letter writing establishes the relationship with the sponsored child. It makes it possible for the child to communicate with an adult, and like any child, this gift is seen as a sign of very strong love.

But the height of joy for a family is, without any doubt, to be visited by their child’s sponsor. This constitutes the highest honor, and helps fulfill the hope that they get to know each other deeply. The sponsor also sees the child’s daily life and notes the differences that sponsorship has made.

Pastor Kogoro hopes that if the sponsor takes this step to visit, it will not only further encourage the sponsor and child, but the sponsor will be convinced of the salvation brought to the child, who in his turn will know for certain the true love expressed by his sponsor.

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Florence Sena Amponsah is a Partnership Facilitator for 12 Compassion-assisted child development centers. She has been with Compassion Ghana for one year now. She is involved with a pilot program to train youths to educate their peers about HIV and AIDS.

“When children get to a certain age, around the teenage years, they tend to relate more to their peers and their siblings who are closer to them in age than they would from their parents or teachers or adults in general.

“Parents and adults have the inclination to be uncommunicative on issues concerning sex, but children get to an age where they need answers to many things happening to their bodies. When they do not get the responses they require, they turn to their peers for information.

“Most times the information shared among peers is by and large wrong and detrimental.

“Considering these facts, we believe that when the capacity of children whom we call ‘Peer Educators’ is built up by equipping then with right knowledge and correct information, then these children can carry the message across to other children, their communities, their churches and even in their schools.

“What they are learning are most of the general things they need answers to at their developmental stage, which they are not able to openly talk about.

“The Peer Educators Training is in the pilot phase for 12 child development centers, presenting two children from each. So there are 24 children involved in the pilot.

“From what I have seen so far, I can confidently say that the program is going to make a great impact. The group of children here are highly intelligent, and judging from their participation, I can tell they are learning a lot as they find the topics to be relevant to them.

“We chose HIV and AIDS as the topic for the peer educators because HIV and AIDS is a disease which is threatening Africa. It has cut across many countries, and is a problem here in Ghana.

“We have orphans, we have people who have been infected with the disease, so we are building the capacity of these peer educators to carry the message.

“They are being taught how the disease is spread so that if they know, they will make informed decisions about themselves. At least they will know how to protect themselves.

“They are also being taught the need to care for other people who have the disease to help prevent discrimination, isolation and rejection.”

Comfort is a parent and the Vice Chairman of the Association of Parents. She is a trader who deals in used clothing. She is among the many parents who have had the opportunity to benefit from HIV and AIDS education as part of our AIDS Initiative.

“I have come here for the parental meeting. My son is in the child development center. His name is Wesley. We named him after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church.

“I have benefited so much from these meetings. Through these educations, I am well informed on HIV and AIDS.

“Now I know that a person can be carrying the disease for a long time without knowing it. I now know that HIV is when the person has the virus, but is not sick with AIDS but can spread the disease.

“I have been encouraged to go for voluntary testing because it is good to know your status early, so that help can be given to you to keep you from getting sick with AIDS itself.

“We were talked to about stigmatization of AIDS patients. Now I know that I cannot catch the disease just by socializing with a person with AIDS.

“I have a different attitude toward AIDS now. I do not know my status yet, but the next time the opportunity comes, I will be the first person to go for testing. I am already encouraging my friends who did not get the chance to be in these meetings to go for counseling and testing, because that saves life.

“In fact, I am sharing all I know about the disease with anybody I get the chance to talk to.”

Nyarko is 12 years old and is a peer educator.

“I have just graduated from junior secondary school and about to enter senior high school. As a peer educator, I am learning about HIV and AIDS, teenage pregnancy and many more topics.

“I have been told that AIDS is now a major problem in Africa, and more and more people are getting it and more people are dying. I also know that even though a lot of education is going on, many more people are still ignorant about the disease and teenagers are also getting it. Ghana has to intensify education on HIV/AIDS.

“In Ghana there is an increase in orphans due to parents dying from the disease. There is also an increase in the poverty rate because many people are so sick and weak with the disease that they cannot work to support themselves and their families. The high poverty rate has also pushed the youth into prostitution, which is helping the disease to spread.

“I now know that HIV is the virus and AIDS is the disease itself. There is no cure for AIDS so it is important that we abstain from sex. We have also had lessons in sex education, the different forms of abuses and how to identify them. I have learned a lot.

“I have also learned that it is only by doing the HIV/AIDS test that you can tell your status. I know now that it does not mean that you are going to die the moment you have the virus, HIV. But if you know your status and start taking good care of yourself early by taking your drugs and eating good diet, you can live for many years without getting AIDS.

“I intend to share what I have learned with my friends at the student center. I will educate everyone my age I come into contact with. I can even educate some adult who would be willing to listen to me.

“I will tell the girls that even if they do not get AIDS from having sex, they can get pregnant and drop out of school and their life will be a mess.

“I will tell them about all the forms of abuses and let them know that rapists are not strangers alone but rather can be close relatives or well-known people. I have also learned that boys can be raped. I will share with them what to do if they find themselves in any of these bad situations.”

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We eat rice, millet pastry and beans. As we are only two, I cook once a day. After breakfast, I cook and we eat the meal at noon, and in the evening I reheat the leftovers and we eat.

We are living in an urban area. We have electricity and running water in the community, but only for those who can afford it. We also have a medical center in the neighborhood. Most people sell small items to feed their families.

I discovered my daughter was HIV-positive in 2005. She was suffering from severe chickenpox. The treating doctor suggested us to take an AIDS test. We agreed, and the child was declared HIV-positive.

I do not know how she got the disease, if it was during her birth or during the blood transfusion she got when she was very little.

My daughter does not yet know she is HIV-positive, but I will surely tell her. As I do not know how she will react, I am looking for the right moment to tell her.

I am also HIV-positive, but I do not know how and when I got infected. When the doctor discovered that my daughter was HIV-positive, he encouraged me to take the test and that was how I came to know.

I was very shocked when I found out. I was asking myself how I would live with the disease and how others would react.

Four years after being declared HIV-positive, I am still asking myself the same questions. And sometimes I even think of killing my daughter and committing suicide. I would not like to die and leave my daughter alone. Who will take care of her?

I have found no way out of this. In fact, it is because I do believe that God can make a way that I am still alive; otherwise I would have killed myself long ago.

People living with AIDS are not seen well. They are criticized and stigmatized. Whenever people know or even suspect you are HIV-positive they stop talking to you and won’t come to your house anymore.

My daughter and I are under antiretroviral drug therapy (ART) since 2005, just after the AIDS screening test.

My daughter takes lamivudine, aloe-vera and zidovudine. She takes one tablet of each drug in the morning and in the evening.

As for me, I take aloe-vera and zidovudine. I also take one tablet of each drug in the morning and in the evening.

So far we feel good and have not yet experienced any side effects. The doctor said that my daughter may start to vomit, or her eyes and hands may turn white, and he told me to bring her to him in this case. But so far everything is all right.

I would like God to give long life to my child. I am praying for God to make her succeed in life and be self-sufficient, and the Lord knows where to put her.

She has not yet told me about her dream, but she uses to say that when she grows up and gains a lot of money she will build a big house. I always tell her, “The Lord will give you long life and ability to achieve what you plan to do!”

After Azalea shared about her circumstances with me, she and her daughter took part in a sensitization campaign for caregiveres at the child development center.

People in Azalea’s community believe that they will be infected if they dare get close to HIV-positive people. Through these sensitization campaigns that Azalea’s church conducts from time to time, many people in the community have started to learn about the disease, and the stigma is decreasing.

When Azalea and her daughter returned home, the daughter asked so many questions that Azalea seized the opportunity to talk about their HIV-positive statuses.

The daughter asked many questions to understand more about HIV and AIDS. They talked positively, and there was no negativity. Praise God!

*Azalea is not the mother’s real name. Her name was changed for this blog post to protect her privacy.

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The walk through the haphazardly planned township of Fadama is not a smooth one. You have to stop from time to time to scan the road to avoid stepping into wastewater on the ground due to lack of a proper drainage system.

Several child development center workers from the Church of Pentecost Fadama went into Fadama to identify impoverished children in the community to be registered into their new center.

As the four team members turned a corner, they collided with a little boy who had been angrily shoved out of a wooden structure that serves as a place where people go to buy food and eat. Such spots in Ghana are popularly called “chop bars.”

The boy was thin, in worn-out clothes and with no sandals to protect his feet from the filth on the ground. His name was Fred.

Fred is a 9-year-old-boy who lives with his 82-year-old grandfather, Steven, who is too old to do any work.

Food is hard to provide, so Fred sneaks into chop bars to eat leftovers from customers who don’t finish their food. He does this to the annoyance of the bartenders, who subject Fred to harsh treatment when they lay hands on him. Fred does not go to school because his grandfather cannot afford the school fees.

The grandfather, Steven, used to work as a domestic servant for expatriates until 1986, when that service was scrapped and he lost his job.

In 2003, he again got a job as a night watch with a private company, but could not do that for long due to his frequent poor health. Doctors advised him that it was bad for him at his age to work out in the open air at night. He stopped the job and has not had a job since.

Fred’s father died not long after he was born. His mother remarried, but the new husband does not want to have Fred in his home. The grandfather is the only relative who is willing to have Fred now.

After the center workers saw his condition, Fred became the 148th child to be registered into their child development center. He has been enrolled in school and is in class/grade one. He attends the center regularly on Saturdays. Yet conditions did not immediately change much at home.

Food provision continues to be difficult. Granddad still does not earn any income. Sometimes the old man himself has to go to the center to get money from the workers before he can buy food for Fred and himself.

The center staff were worried about Fred’s condition at home, and wondered what they could do to make life better for him and his grandfather in the long term. Then Compassion’s Highly Vulnerable Children’s (HVC) Fund was introduced in Ghana.

The HVC Fund is an initiative through which assistance is given to children in critical situations – children facing devastating conditions that could end their lives or prevent them from growing and developing in the way that God wants them to.

The Highly Vulnerable Children’s Fund works with the poorest of the poor children. It helps children who are poor and need special attention and assistance in order to survive.

For example, HVC might help an orphan whose caregiver is too old, too sick or not in a condition to generate any income to sustain the child. Or some families are so large, sometimes as large as 10 children, with parents who are not gainfully employed, so food does not go around.

Compassion Ghana does not register more than two children from the same family, except in extremely special situations. This means that the once-a-week feeding on Saturday is not going to help a child in this situation that much.

Children like this would need another intervention to bring them to the level of other children in the Child Sponsorship Program. That is where the Highly Vulnerable Children’s Fund comes in.

The HVC Fund provides children supplemental nutrition. This is intended to help the children eat regularly and get the nutrients their bodies need so that they can grow and develop well. Nutritious food will help them develop  cognitively and perform well in their studies.

Every month, rather than giving the families money, the child is given food worth 20 Ghana cedis, which is about U.S.$143. From this money, the center buys nutritional food such as beans, eggs and milk for the child monthly.

Fred receives food supplements every month. He is looking better physically, and is doing better at school.He can now speak a few words of English and does simple arithmetic. His favorite sport is soccer. The center gave him a soccer ball which he cherishes so much.

Another component of HVC is income-generation activities organized for caregivers to give them economic power so that they can also provide for the other needs of the children, apart from what Compassion is providing. It also enables them to take care of other children in the family who might not be in the sponsorship program. Without this, the little that is provided by Compassion would be spread among the rest of the family, which would still not be enough.

Caregivers are trained to identify things they can do to generate income, and are empowered with grant money with which they can start a trade. (The specific amount given to individual caregivers is still under discussion.)

Grandfather Steven is in the process of being helped by the center to start earning an income selling firewood. He is very grateful for what Compassion is doing for Fred.

“I know that I am very old and I do not have long to be there for my grandson. But it is my prayer that Compassion would continue to be there for Fred even when I am gone.

“I was there only in body for Fred, but it was Compassion who gave us hope.”

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But if your call to serve the poor extends beyond holistic child development, which it does for many people, we’d like to introduce you to our partner TEAR Fund New Zealand.

TEAR Fund stands for The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, and its purpose is to glorify God by extending His kingdom in ministry to the poor, oppressed and disadvantaged, and to encourage God’s people to live out the values and principles of His kingdom by sharing with those in need.

TEAR Fund New Zealand represents the compassion of Jesus. This organization partners with local Christian organizations and churches in developing countries who use local staff to work directly with the poorest people, helping the poor find their own solutions, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs.

Microenterprise, community development projects and disaster relief are TEAR Fund New Zealand’s key activities, but that’s not all this ministry does. Right now, it’s working to eradicate the Guinea worm in Côte d’Ivoire, and also has programs to fight adult illiteracy and sexual slavery, among others.

TEAR Fund New Zealand offers child sponsorship too, but does that through us. Sponsoring a child with TEAR Fund New Zealand is sponsoring a child through Compassion.

Although our friend is from New Zealand, you can still partner with this Christian aid and development agency. Visit tearfund.co.nz to learn more.

We promise they don’t write with an accent…then again, maybe they do.

Oh yeah, you may like this. TEAR Fund New Zealand’s non-sponsorship programs are conducted in places of the world we don’t currently work.

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• China
• Malawi
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Nepal
• Niger
• Palestine
• Sudan

So if your heart is in those parts of the world, TEAR Fund New Zealand would be pleased to meet you.

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“Along the wall outside the Compassion project, many children watched and waited while the other children played and sang. With hundreds and thousands of children needing the hope that Compassion brings, our hearts broke to see the ones that could not be helped. Hundreds more are waiting for their chance to be sponsored, to be given hope, to be shown the love of Christ.” — scfish7

Then recently, I received the following e-mail.

“I read the blog about the children who are registered who are able to sing and enjoy meals while the unregistered ones just stare at them, wishing they were one of them. I have a hard time imagining what this is like.

“Is it like there is a ‘Century Fence,’ so to speak, that separates these two groups, where the unregistered look in and feel sad as they watch the sponsored eat hot meals and be carefree?

“Does this make them feel more unloved?

“Is it appropriate to send a picture or have one on this Web site so I can see what you are talking about? I have a hard time understanding this and maybe a picture would help.”

What are your thoughts? What do the children on the outside looking in feel?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

If you have trouble viewing the slideshow above, you can view the photos on Flickr.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

The African child is a resilient one, as many on the African continent must gather up great energy each day just to survive. The constant onslaught of risks and dangers that they face is more than many of us can imagine and more than any child should bear. HIV, AIDS, malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition…..just a few of the barriers that these children must overcome to live healthy and fulfilling lives.

After having spent a good deal of time living and traveling to Africa, I have been amazed and incredibly blessed by being around these children. They have taught me more than any textbook could, and have given me strength when I needed it most.

Here’s to the millions of children in Africa that could use our prayers and support as they continue to face the harshest of environments.

Let’s commit to remembering them and praying for the continued success of this ministry that seeks to serve them and bring them out of their poverty.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates