This is where your money goes

Does sponsorship make a difference? Ask Abu, Abdul, Sasabuddin, and Sohel.

These secondary students have been sponsor children for eight years. They are happy and healthy, inquisitive and intelligent, and kind, community-oriented young men. We did not seek them out, but they found us when we went to go visit a World Vision Child Corner.

I’ll rewind.

World Vision’s Child Corners are a first of their kind in the Patenga area. Before they started, there were no places for children to gather under one roof. Idle time was spent in the streets, gossiping, working, or getting into trouble. There was no library; the only books they read where those assigned to them in school.
Now, 600 children (yes, 600!) gather every Thursday and Friday afternoon to read books, use computers, play games, and learn music. The Child Corner is the only library in town, where older children encourage the younger ones to step into the world of literature. For many of the children, it is the only place that they will be able to play with games, toys, building blocks, and musical instruments.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Child Corner is that it is entirely run by child volunteers. World Vision helps with the organizing and required material resources, but activities are planned and decisions are made by a democratically elected committee of 11 children.

Back to Abu, Abdul, Sasabuddin, and Sohel, four of the 11 committee members.

Not only are these boys excelling in their studies, but they are giving back to their community. They do it because they want to see the small children live a full life. They draw their inspiration from the positive changes that they are seeing in these children, who they consider to be their little brothers and sisters… all 600 of them.

If not for their sponsors, both Abu, 17 and Sohel, 17 believe that they would have dropped out of school by now and begun their careers as daily labourers or sweatshop workers. These boys are now aiming for college. They have already seen many friends go this route and know that they are the lucky ones… something that their less fortunate friends remind them of regularly as they encourage them to not waste the opportunities that they’ve been given.

For those of you who may still be on the fence about sponsorship, they have a message for you (paraphrased, as we were working through translators): While they are the success stories, Bangladesh still has many children not attending school or dropping out. Sponsorship is not only about money, but is a source of communication, of friendship. It is a bridge for the children. Education is the most important tool in releasing children of the developing world from extreme poverty. To live generously is a fact of pride and a matter of grace.