Why Child Sponsorship Is an Effective Way to Fight Poverty

Poverty impacts millions of children around the world. These little ones go without food, clean water, medical care and other necessities. And living in a constant struggle to survive wears down their hope that life will ever get better. They feel hopeless.

While there are many solutions to poverty, child sponsorship is one of the most effective. Through the consistent care sponsorship provides, these precious children find help and hope. Sponsorship empowers them to overcome poverty with the hope of the gospel. Here, we show you how.

What’s Here:

• Solutions to Poverty: What Is Child Sponsorship?
• How Child Sponsorship Helps Fight Poverty
  • Child Sponsorship Helps Children Achieve Spiritual & Physical Health
  • Healthy & Whole Children Become Thriving Followers of Jesus
  • Thriving Followers of Jesus Change Their Communities
• Child Sponsorship Works: Real Stories of Transformation

Solutions to Poverty: What Is Child Sponsorship?

Put simply, child sponsorship means donating to a child every month. At Compassion, this support equips a local church in a child’s community to:

1. Introduce the child to hope found in Jesus.
2. Care for the child’s immediate needs.
3. Prepare the child for a brighter future beyond poverty.

Child sponsorship also allows you to encourage and pray for a child in need, showing them that they matter and someone believes in them.

How Child Sponsorship Fights Poverty

There’s something important to notice about the definition of child sponsorship. As a sponsor, you donate monthly to share God’s love through consistent spiritual and practical care.

You see, leaving poverty behind doesn’t happen overnight. And it also requires more than just financial aid. For a child to be released from poverty, they need ongoing care as they grow and their needs change. They also need the hope found in Jesus, which outlasts their present circumstances of poverty.

Being free from poverty means having spiritual freedom and freedom from economic hardship, disease and exploitation. And child sponsorship through Compassion cares for children by providing all of the above.

When children are spiritually healthy and practically cared for, they can become thriving followers of Jesus who change their communities. This transformation starts with one child but grows to change many lives.

Let’s take a few moments to break this truth down even further.

Child Sponsorship Helps Children Thrive Spiritually & Practically

At Compassion, child sponsorship empowers churches to care for children’s critical needs. This means we share God’s love by caring for their spiritual and practical needs.

• Spiritual needs: We help children live free from spiritual poverty by introducing them to Jesus and discipling them in a local church community. Through a relationship with Jesus, they can experience true love and hope, empowering them to see beyond the challenges of poverty and inspiring them to reach for more.
• Practical needs: We also help children grow and thrive by meeting their right-now and long-term needs. For example, we protect children from malnutrition and offer yearly checkups to ensure children are healthy. We surround children with loving adults, protecting them from abuse. We also provide education, giving children the ability to learn and grow into self-sufficient adults.

Healthy & Whole Children Can Become Thriving Followers of Jesus

When children know the love of Jesus and are truly cared for, they can grow up healthy and whole. They start to see beyond the hopelessness of poverty and into a brighter future. And this hope? It helps them endure and overcome any challenge.

As we said above, release from poverty doesn’t happen overnight. As a child grows, there will still be hard times due to the devastating circumstances of poverty. But a relationship with Jesus gives them eternal hope despite these circumstances. This hope encourages children to keep going, even when things are tough.

It’s this hope, coupled with consistent love and care, that enables children to go from surviving to thriving, following Jesus and growing into their full God-given potential as they journey out of poverty.

According to a recent survey of Compassion program alumni from the Dominican Republic, 95% said the program resulted in them feeling hope as an adult.

Thriving Followers of Jesus Change Their Communities

At Compassion, we know that when children grow into thriving adults, they often want to help those around them do the same. Many Compassion alumni have become nurses, pastors, doctors, teachers, leaders and faithful servants in their communities, changing many more lives.

According to a recent survey of Compassion program alumni from the Dominican Republic, 90% reported serving in their communities.

Changing a child’s life creates a ripple effect of change. Each life transformed results in so many more, impacting entire communities, nations and the world.

Child Sponsorship Works: Real Stories of Transformation

As you can see, releasing one child from poverty through child sponsorship can help many more fight back against poverty around the world.

At first, it can seem too good to be true. How can one monthly donation do all of that? But we’ve seen this transformation for ourselves over and over again.

John Escapes Poverty to Serve His Haitian Community

John grew up in an impoverished community in Haiti. His family struggled to find food each day and couldn’t afford to pay for his education. John knew his future would almost certainly be the same as the present: living in poverty and struggling to survive.

However, he was registered at his local Compassion center as a child. Through the local church, he received food, was able to go to school and got to spend time with safe and supportive friends. He was also introduced to Jesus. In fact, his family received their very first Bible through the Compassion center.

With his life given to Christ and his needs met, John knew hope for the first time. And thanks to letters from his sponsor, he knew he was valued, which gave him confidence. As a young adult, John attended college, graduated and started a career in banking.

After three years of successful banking work, John wanted to do more to fulfill God’s calling on his life. So he went back to his Haitian community and became the director of a Compassion center. Today, he helps children in need meet Jesus and overcome poverty as he once did.

Maureen Overcomes Hopelessness to Rescue Girls From Crisis

As a child, Maureen lived in an overcrowded, impoverished community in Kenya. Her family would often go without eating for days on end. And when they did find food, it was often rotten fruit that local market vendors couldn’t sell.

In Maureen’s words, “Life was unbearable.” She was so hungry and often unable to attend school. Without an education, she had no hope for her future. Maureen felt trapped.

“There was no ray of hope in everything that was happening in my life. So that actually made me hate myself so much. And hate God.” — Maureen

But when Maureen was 7, she was registered at her local Compassion center. She received nutritious meals, and her sponsor wrote her encouraging words and shared Scriptures. The program also covered her school fees and supplies, inspiring Maureen to study hard.

Maureen began to believe in herself and God’s love for her. She finished high school and became the first in her family to attend university.

Maureen initially planned to teach high school, but she knew God was calling her into something more. Devastated by the news that young girls in her Kenyan community were being sold into sex work, she knew she had to help.

In March 2011, Maureen opened Rehema House, a Christian nonprofit that rescues young and impoverished pregnant girls from the streets. She spends her time offering help and the hope of Jesus to girls as full of despair as she once was.

John and Maureen have a lot in common. They’re both thriving followers of Jesus. They’re both changing lives in their communities. And they both were cared for and loved through child sponsorship.

John, Maureen and so many others are proof that child sponsorship works. As a child sponsor, you too can transform a life, helping us effectively release children from poverty in Jesus’ name around the world.