Transform a child's life
When you become a Child Sponsor, both you and the child experience a life-changing and truly inspirational connection with each other.
Enjoy the incredible journey of your child's progress through personal letters, updates, and photographs, and watch as they are empowered to achieve their dreams.
Why Sponsor a child
Where your money goes when you sponsor a child
There is nothing else quite like sponsoring a child. Your generosity can make a measurable difference, a difference you can see and experience.
You can protect and empower children living in the world's toughest places.
Children at risk of child marriage.
Children without an education.
Children without parents.
You can help impoverished families, children, and entire communities find hope in their future.
Sponsor stories
Education
Your money can help teach children in communities across the world. You can make sure not just one child, but future generations no longer live in poverty. You can help to fund community projects and clubs so children have endless opportunities to learn.
Food
You can help make sure families have the means to provide for their children - with your money we'll teach communities about growing stronger and effective farming techniques. We share knowledge of nutrition, helping families feed their children and saving millions of lives around the world.
Protection
You can make sure some of the most vulnerable children in the world escape abuse or exploitation, including child marriage. Together, we can give these children a safe and secure life and hope for the future.
Healthcare
Help fund World Vision's healthcare assistants in some of the toughest parts of the world and make sure children living in poverty are vaccinated. We'll also use donations to empower vulnerable families to protect their children from coronavirus.
Water
You can stop children dying from drinking dirty water. Sponsorship helps us build boreholes and clean water taps – so no mother has to choose between giving her child dirty water, or none at all. Clean water saves lives, keeps children healthy, and allows them to go to school.
Income
You can help World Vision teach new skills, and support mothers to start their own businesses. We're helping families gain a stable income so they can afford the essentials, like healthcare, nutrition, and education.
Empowerment
Our work is about making sure communities and children can lead fulfilling lives, without our help. So when a community has everything that it needs, we move on. Sponsoring a child creates the teachers, nurses and community leaders of the future.
Sponsor a child
How Child Sponsorship works
What you get when you sponsor a child
Within four weeks
You’ll receive a welcome pack with more information, a photo of your sponsored child, and a postcard so you can easily write to them if you want to.
On their birthday
We’ll send you a card that you can add a message to for your sponsored child. Don’t be surprised if these arrive a couple of months before the big day - it’s just to make sure they get there in time.
Once a year
We’ll send you a progress update including: a new photo so you can see how they’ve grown, an update on how their life is changing, details on how your donations have been used and a note or drawing from your sponsored child.
Sponsor a child
Because of our community-focused solutions, for every child you help,4 more children benefit, too.
What child sponsors say
When Shemi had her first son, Adam, it made her want to do something for other children without the same opportunities as him.
Shemi's sons watched Rachael grow up letter by letter, rushing to open the envelopes, each time amazed at the transformation.
Writing to your child
I would say to someone who is thinking about sponsoring a child - go ahead and do it, it is the most life changing thing ever!
Do something incredible today
There are children all over the world that need your help. Our child sponsorship programmes help not only the most vulnerable children but their families and communities too.
Sponsor a child
Why World Vision
70 years of experience
Experts in transforming communities and children's lives.
Almost 100 countries
Trusted worldwide to provide water, education, food and emergency response.
200 million children
We've helped more than 200 million children to achieve their dreams.
Success story
With the help of child sponsorship, Nancy became one of the first girls in her community in Kenya to graduate high school and was inspired to become an emergency aid worker. Her sponsor, Georgie, is amazed at the impact that her child sponsorship has had on Nancy.
Lenny, Philippines
27-year-old former sponsored child, Lenny, is helping families fight the coronavirus pandemic.
She is a frontline health worker working for the government to test, protect and treat people in need."I am worried especially as I have an infant waiting for me at home, but I have to be where I am most needed."
Child Sponsorship doesn't help just one child, but future generations too.
Marline, Rwanda
Marline, 27, lost both her parents during a mass slaughter of nearly two million people in Rwanda.
Losing her parents haunted her. “When they died, I suffered and I was in a challenging situation,” Marline says.
But when she was nine years old, Marline was supported through World Vision's Sponsor a Child scheme. Thanks to this support, she completed her education and became a teacher.
Nasima, Bangladesh
Nasima watched her Dad marry off her sister. “She was only 14,” Nasima says. Nasima escaped the same fate, after being sponsored.
Nasima’s father is sick and unable to work. Her mother is illiterate. They needed support.
“My mother was given a cow,” Nasima says.It enabled the family to earn more and they've been able to buy more land and expand their business. Nasima is in training for a government job.
Kong, Cambodia
“My sponsor always responded to my letters, wrote great encouraging words, she asked me about my dream. I told her that I wanted to be a medical doctor,” Kong said.
Kong finished his nursing degree and now works in the community helping local people.
“World Vision’s staff came to me with school materials such as school bag and books,” says Kong. “It encouraged me to study harder and harder.”
Irish, Philippines
Irish was sponsored when she was five and thanks to the support of her sponsor, World Vision and her family she became a teacher.
“I see myself in them when I was their age. My hope is for them to reach their dreams like I did mine.”
Today, Irish is supporting her youngest brother’s education and providing for her family, alongside the students she helps to succeed every day.
Amandeep, India
"When I first wanted to start my training as a nurse, we lacked the funds to pay for the fees," says Amandeep.
"My father did his best to help me finish my schooling, but this was too much for him."
"It was only after World Vision India intervened and paid my fees that I was able to secure my admission for the course. I will always be grateful for that."
Sponsor a child
Sign up to learn more
Frequently Asked Questions
You can easily sign up to sponsor a child by choosing a child above or by calling our Supporter Care Team on 01 498 0800
World Vision has had a Child Sponsorship programme for more than 70 years. We pair donors with a vulnerable child who needs protection and empowerment.
Child Sponsorship brings much needed change to more than just one child — the benefits you help provide extends to each child's family, their community and other children in need.
This is because World Vision partners, plans and works alongside local community members to help build healthy, sustainable communities for vulnerable children in the world’s hardest places. Learn more about how Child Sponsorship works.
All of World Vision's work begins with listening to communities in need. Community leaders work with us to identify the most vulnerable children and families who will benefit from Child Sponsorship.
We work with national governments and other international agencies to identify the regions and communities that are most in need and where the most vulnerable children live. We then meet with community leaders and the wider community to gain a greater understanding of the challenges and the opportunities that exist for them and we develop a long-term plan together, to break the cycle of poverty.
If your sponsored child does not live in a restricted country, you are free to share this information online:
* child and community photos and videos, as long as they don’t contain landmarks that reveal your sponsored child’s location
* excerpts of letters and cards from your sponsored child that don’t include their last name or address
* your sponsored child’s first name, age and country
* your sponsored child's language, hobbies, chores and grade level at school
* your sponsored child’s general health status (excluding sensitive details)
Sharing some types of personal information can threaten the privacy and safety of your sponsored child and their community. For this reason we don’t include last names, community names or locations or any other information that might identify the location of sponsored children on our website. We ask you to do the same when you are sharing your sponsorship story online.
Please don’t share this information online:
* your sponsored child’s surname and sponsorship ID number
* first names, surnames and occupations of your sponsored child’s parents
* your sponsored child’s address or school name and address community village/name
* your sponsored child’s height and weight, specific medical conditions or disabilities
* your sponsored child’s religion
* images that are geotagged to your sponsored child's location
These things all reveal too much about your sponsored child’s identity and location and could place them at risk.
See more
More about Child Sponsorship