Why Sponsoring?
I've sponsored with Children International for over 10 years now and I've been the sponsor of one of my current children, Katherine, for 9 of those years. I believe that CI has a good model - people are more likely to make, and keep, a monthly commitment to a charity when there is a personal connection. I don't know if I would even make the monthly contribution that I do regularly if there wasn't an individual child, with whom I have a relationship, attached to each part of my donation. When I first started sponsoring, CI partnered with existing charities in the area; however, now they largely (or perhaps totally) have their own centers to provide benefits. The general sponsorship amount provides a child with medical care, dental care, school supplies, a library, computer access and many other things. There are programs for school scholarships, employment assistance and similar help for teens and even cooking classes to teach the parents how to make nutrious meals with locally available foods. It's a good model and I've seen it work during my time sponsoring.
Why Children International?
Out of the child sponsorship groups, I chose CI because they consistently have good ratings from groups who review charities. I also don't agree with forced conversion and CI has no religious affliation nor do they require children to convert to any religion at any age in order to continue receiving benefits. They also allow their sponsors to do a great many "extras." If you want to assist your children in going to a better school or with tuition costs for grades that aren't free (like after 6th grade in Guatemala) or tutoring, CI will let you do that or community projects. For other projects that help the child, like housing improvements, the project can be done with a 10% fee for the administrative cost of getting quotes, getting supplies and checking that the work is complete (with photos for the sponsor when it is). If you write your child back, you'll typically get at least 4 letters per year rather than just 2 letters as well. They will also allow you to visit and meet your child, visit the child's community center and visit the child's home (if safe to do so). They also have a GREAT social media site for sponsors to connect with each other if they wish.
Why Guatemala?
Well, I don't only sponsor in Guatemala - I have two kids in the Dominican Republic (siblings) and one in the Philippines (gift sponsorship for my sister) and one child in Ecuador (sponsorship in honor of my friend's father passing) . . . but most of my kids are in Guatemala. Having visited there, I really love the people, the culture and the climate. My original reasons for sponsoring primarily there though were:
- At the time, Guatemalan kids waited the longest to be selected for sponsorship (US kids were the shortest).
- I speak a little Spanish (more then) and wanted a country where I could speak to the kids directly to an extent, so I was interested in a Spanish-speaking country
- Guatemala has the lowest literacy rate out of the Spanish-speaking countries
- Guate has the highest poverty rate out of the Spanish-speaking countries
- School was only free through 6th grade (this just recently has started to improve)
- Guate has the highest levels of child malnutrition and infant mortality in the Spanish-speaking countries
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