Please continue to not sponsor this child
Did you know you can design your own child?
If you visit the website of World Vision, Compassion International or almost any other child sponsorship agency, you will be greeted with an assortment of demographics to select from – age, gender, country, even birth date, if you have a special day in mind for your child’s birthday. At every step of the way, you will be assured that you are making a ‘life-changing connection that empowers the child and their community for a future filled with opportunity’.1
This ‘design your own’ approach to child sponsorship has barely changed in 40 years.
In May 1982, Peter Stalker wrote a powerful critique of child sponsorship for ( 111). In it he highlighted that while child sponsorship might be an easy way to raise money, it was not such a good way to spend it. In 1982 there were ‘one million “foster parents” in the West,’ wrote Stalker. By 2022 the number has grown more than 10-fold, while the amount of money raised in the name of child sponsorship It has become a highly effective global fundraising machine. But in whose interests and at what costs?
