Optimistic Voices
Vital voices in the fields of global health, global child welfare reform and family separation, and those intent on conducting ethical missions in low resource communities and developing nations. Join our hosts as they engage in conversations with diverse guests from across the globe, sharing optimistic views, experiences, and suggestions for better and best practices as they discuss these difficult topics.
Optimistic Voices
Redefining Aid: The Journey from Child Sponsorship to Community Empowerment
Part One:
Discover the transformative power of reimagined humanitarian aid in our latest episode of Optimistic Voices. Join me, Dr. Melody Curtis, along with experts Dr. Laura Horvath, Jared Scheppman, and Kelly Strong, as we share our journey from traditional child sponsorship models to a new paradigm that champions community empowerment. We're peeling back the curtain to reveal the ethical dilemmas and strategic decisions that are reshaping the way we support vulnerable children around the world.
The narrative of child sponsorship is being rewritten, and you're invited to listen in as Jared discusses the rationale behind EKISA aschewing child sponsorship for an innovative fundraising effort that doesn't "throw the baby out with the bathwater." As our conversation unfolds, we explore how this organization has courageously stepped away from individual sponsorships to pioneer a collective approach that enriches entire communities. This crucial episode uncovers the reality of these programs — from the potential to unintentionally propagate paternalism to the inspiring possibilities that emerge from consistent, holistic support.
Kelly Strong spotlights how their bold rebranding of a monthly giving program places family empowerment at the forefront. Hear firsthand from Dr. Laura Horvath about how her organization grappled with the false narrative that lifelong personal bonds are developed through child sponsorship, and their decision to adopt a new way of speaking about dedicated donors advocating and partnering with workers to uplift and protect entire communities. The insights shared by our panel challenge traditional donor roles and highlight the importance of sustainable change, ensuring that this episode will leave listeners enlightened and potentially inspired to advocate for more equitable forms of humanitarian aid.
But what happens to organizations after they make this decision?
Listen in to our next episode, as these bold leaders discuss with radical honesty the impacts, good and bad, on their organization and its mission.
Helpingchildrenworldwide.org
Welcome to the Optimistic Voices podcast. I'm Helping Children Worldwide CEO, executive Director and sometime podcast sound engineer, dr Melody Curtis. I'll be hosting today's show instead of our regular host, because today Optimistic Voices host Dr Laura Horvath, helping Children Worldwide's Director of Global Engagement, is my guest. In this episode. We're going to try to tackle a particularly thorny topic child sponsorship with our characteristic radical honesty. I'm going to be talking with Laura, along with Jared Shepman of IKISA and Kelly Strong of Kenyon Children's Project. These three individuals are part of the Christian community of practice who work toward development outcomes that address the real needs of children in the global south. Commonly called OVC, an acronym for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, it includes children impacted by death of one or more of their parents or those who have been displaced or lost connection to family by acts of violence, political unrest and conflict, war, natural disasters and severe poverty, and children living on the edge of that risk. Let's introduce our guest. The Optimistic Voices podcast audience is well acquainted with Dr Horvath Horvath. Laura's skill as an educator, with a doctorate in education and curriculum development, landed her a role in leading ACW's response to what was once known as the global orphan crisis. You might think this move from educating young adults and youth in the greater DC area to working with OVC and Sierra Leone was a right angle turn and a bit surprising. My husband was fond of saying once is an occasion, two is the habit and three is a trend. And this right angle pivot seems to be a trend.
Speaker 1:Jared Shepman is the executive director of Akisa Ministries, which works to change the lives of children living with disability in Uganda, in the majority world also known as the global south Because the majority of the world is found in the majority world. Also known as the Global South Because the majority of the world is found in the Southern Hemisphere and the majority of the world is less advantaged than those living in the Northern Hemisphere. We call that the Global South. Jared is known to be an enthusiastic innovator who cares deeply about solving the root causes of problems. Jared says he gets excited about the same kind of nerdy things I do bold leadership, ideas, program design, best practices and why we like them, as well as demonstrating new real life impacts of best practices on the lives of children to encourage others in our field to support and adopt them. Jared began his career as a high school pastor.
Speaker 1:Kelly Strong heads up Kenyan Children's Project, a registered charity in England and Wales regulated by the Charities Commission. The KCP is the sole funding body of the Children's Transformation Project Kenya, a registered and well-respected NGO in Kenya that works with street children, orphans and disadvantaged children, aiding their rehabilitation, providing them where possible with the home, education, medical aid and assistance in combating the root causes behind the problems. The charity also assists widows who cannot afford to otherwise care for their children. Kelly's career started in nursing.
Speaker 1:We've assembled these three a former teacher, a former preacher and a former nurse to discuss a tough choice they have each embraced. They each followed the road less taken to become leaders in the field of orphan response, and today I'm going to ask them to share their radically honest opinions about a debate many international development experts are just now confronting. By the way, I don't think anybody ever really stops being a teacher, a preacher or a nurse, wouldn't you all agree? Today's topic, I'm warning you, is going to be a little bit controversial, but it's not meant to be political or divisive. Once we've acknowledged our own complicity in practices, we now deplore what is our role in digging those out at their root. What I'm talking about is asymmetrical power structures that remain and continue to disempower local progress. I hope you'll stay tuned in and listen with curiosity to the opinionspower local progress. I hope you'll stay tuned in and listen with curiosity to the opinions of my guests.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Optimistic Voices, a podcast of helping children worldwide. We help children worldwide by strengthening and empowering families and communities. This podcast is for people interested in deep conversations with thought leaders in the fields of child welfare, global health and international missions.
Speaker 1:Welcome back. I'm Dr Melody Curtis and I'm here with Dr Laura Horvath, kelly Strong and Jared Shepman. We're discussing child sponsorship, one of the most popular ways for individuals to donate, to provide aid to children in the majority world. A great deal of thought and debate has been ongoing in the humanitarian development community, both within and beyond the circle of those who approach this work from the perspective of the Christian faith, about historically negative impacts of the circle of those who approach this work from the perspective of the Christian faith, about historically negative impacts of the expansion of developed economies into other communities hundreds of years ago. It's not about pointing fingers at who did what to whom, but more of a dialogue about how impacts have lingered, causing us to reconsider the nature of the help we're offering and what we might do better. Now. Our guests have ideas to share on that, ideas they have already put into practice. Today's topic is why and how these folks made choices, not just in walking away from popular program delivery models in the Christian sector that aid vulnerable children sector that aid vulnerable children, but also in abandoning development practices that continue to work really well to raise money for charities that serve children. More than 9 million children are supported through international child sponsorship programs at a cost of more than $3.29 million annually. It's such a popular fundraising tool that, unlike other areas where non-profit funding lags, child sponsorships are actually on the rise. Between 2011 and 2015, the budgets of 15 child sponsorship organizations traced with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability demonstrated they had increased by 40%. Despite that, the individuals and these three organizations no longer use child sponsorship as a fundraising option. We will explore with them that decision and its consequences. Did they end up killing a tree that is currently bearing fruit for those they're trying to help? In other words, did the choices they made to put the principle over the popular impact, their success as fundraisers and, more importantly, what ideal compelled them to change? Before we get into the discussion, I'll share some advice about radically honest self-evaluation. Here's some advice about radically honest self-evaluation.
Speaker 1:In September of 2020, 60 representatives of the Dutch humanitarian development sector met to engage in a series of difficult conversations about remnants of the systems of oppression and blind spots about them in the global north that continue to impact the ability of the global south to gain control over its own resources and progress. One keynote address at this conference was from Dr Althea Maria Rivas, senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of London, dr Rivas, said we need to be willing to sit in discomfort with unsettling thoughts and failure and work through these things. It's important to resist the imperative to reproduce and resolve complex problems with uncomplicated solutions. Instead, we need to sit with them and learn from this discomfort. That is the only way to move forward and reflect on our own role in collaboration and investment in these systems.
Speaker 1:I hope that, whatever your opinion is about the value of child sponsorship, you'll be willing to sit with us in our discomfort as we struggle to do the right thing and as we talk about that struggle. So, laura, you were absolutely convicted and wanting us to do this episode. Why?
Speaker 3:convicted and wanting us to do this episode. Why? Well, obviously because I love sitting in the discomfort. Now I'm actually really interested in this topic because we have been doing a lot of deep introspection as we've tried to help helping children worldwide move in this direction for almost a decade. So I just see this as a continuation of a journey we started almost 10 years ago. That began with a determination to face the mistakes that we've made and to take responsibility for them and then to take action to correct them, for them and then to take action to correct them. And what that meant for us is that we had to start by revising an agreement that we had with our partners in Sierra Leone, africa, and the way that we worked with them and to work with them together to close a children's home that we had started together way back in 2000 in order to house children that had been displaced or orphaned during a decade-long civil war.
Speaker 3:It wasn't an easy thing to stop supporting orphanages, because we love the narrative of an orphan redeemed, but we were faced with the truth that orphanages and that redemption of an orphan through an orphanage is a horribly false narrative. And then, once we recognized that it was a horribly false narrative we had to change. What we now know is that orphanages extend the time a child lives separated from their family and that the longer they're separated from a family, the more damage that gets done. And we've talked through a lot of that through season one and season two of Optimistic Voices. We're not going to get into that in this episode because we have a lot more to focus on, but I encourage you, if you want to hear more about what we think about those topics, you can find those episodes.
Speaker 3:For me, today's topic is even more challenging and probably more unpopular, because it's one thing to recognize that keeping children from their families is wrong I think everybody has a felt sense of truth around that and then, once you realize that transforming program approaches, to reframe the orphan crisis to a family separation crisis and then address it as a family separation crisis is that's kind of a no-brainer. But today we're taking like I feel like a giant leap out of our comfort zone, because it's one thing to walk away from a program that you know isn't working and that's having negative outcomes on the very people you're trying to serve, but it's quite another to throw away a fundraising strategy that works because it doesn't align with, maybe, the programs that you're trying to support, because once we accept that our well-meaning approach in motivating donors to share their personal resources and their generosity in order to help children is actually wrongheaded, we have to change, even if that means that we have to give up a funding source that's working.
Speaker 1:Okay, laura, here's a challenge for you. Hcw Helping Children Worldwide had a child sponsorship program for years. You were there when it was created and you were there when it became a major funding source and about 60% of the funds that were needed for the CRC operations were generated through child sponsorship. But you were also a proponent of ending it when it changed. So I know you're not a fan and this might be an unfair question after what you just said, but can you set that decision aside for a moment and describe for our listeners how a child sponsorship program works and what's good about it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm actually really glad you asked this question because I think if you're going to consider shifting your child sponsorship model to something else, this is where you ought to begin. And I was more than a proponent for ending it, I was probably the leader of the band. Being forced to sit down and list all of the things that were good about the child sponsorship model I think is an important piece, and so what I realized is that child sponsorship is just a dedicated donor program on the development or fundraising side of the house. What it is is a program where donors make a dedication, they make a pledge to donate a certain amount of money every month or every year. They make a pledge to donate a certain amount of money every month or every year and, as a nonprofit, knowing that those funds are going to be coming in on a regular basis, that's a huge thing for a nonprofit. I mean, nonprofits are about we can do this programming thing if we can raise the money to do it. But a dedicated donor program like a child sponsorship program, it kind of guarantees that at least this will be coming in, so programs can make plans about things they want to do, knowing that those funds are going to potentially be available. So that's from the sort of internal nonprofit side. So that's from the sort of internal nonprofit side.
Speaker 3:It also connects a donor to a specific human being. In a child sponsorship case it connects them to a specific child who is in need and it shares that child's story with the donor. Child sponsors typically donate a monthly fee. It's usually somewhere in the $25 to $40 a month range. It can cover the cost of things like nutrition, health, education and other program costs. And then they get provided with some sort of information that connects them to the plight of a particular child and the impact over time of that donor's gift on that child's well-being.
Speaker 3:And it's attractive to donors because it creates the idea of a personal relationship between themselves and a child in need. So as a fundraising strategy it's incredibly effective. It connects donors on a personal level to a need and that can be really compelling. Like I said, having that regular funding stream is really important to NGOs like Akisa and the Kenyon Children's Project and HCW in helping to empower their local partners to maximize resources and without having to employ expensive, labor-intensive fundraising strategies, they're connected to a constant stream of donors year over year over year. So there's a lot of power in a child sponsorship program and in the way these things are set up. And when we were looking at migrating, we didn't want to lose, we didn't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Jared, my next question is a little bit less of a softball. I'm going to quote something off of your website. At Akisa, we're always seeking to follow best practices, which is why our sponsorship program is now less focused on one-to-one connection and more focused on fostering one-to-many impact. Many child sponsorship programs facilitate unhealthy attachments between supporters and vulnerable children and perpetuate a mindset of paternalism and saviorism. Those are hard words for me. They perpetuate a mindset of paternalism and saviorism.
Speaker 1:Reflecting on this, we realized our sponsorship program could do even more to prevent this. At the same time, we believe it's important to hear the individual stories of children to see what long-term progress looks like. To that end, every sponsor is given updates on three focused children's families. Why three children? Because all the children in the program you sponsor benefit from your monthly gift and we're excited to share with you how your support of that program impacts a variety of children within their unique circumstances. Together, we can rewrite the way sponsorship is done, seeking the absolute best interests of the children we serve. So, jared, can you describe how EQUIS' new fundraising approach is different from your former model of child sponsorship and what actually drove you to change your model?
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, let me start with the second part of your question. What drove us to change? And Laura just said, you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? And a few years ago, when people started critiquing child sponsorship models and raising points about the bad side of them and the negative sides of them, we listened, you know, as an organization, and we saw the merit in a lot of the critique that people were bringing up, and so we decided to do, you know, similar to what HCW did let's evaluate the good and the bad in this right and that's what really drove us to change this right and that's what really drove us to change. You know, and we say, every organization, right, should have the posture of being willing to learn, to be willing to adapt and change. And, as an organization, as we were learning and listening to some of these critiques, it drove us to that evaluation and ultimately to change in light of it. So, as we considered kind of the good and the bad that we saw about typical sponsorship programs, we came out with some really good takeaways.
Speaker 4:The things that Laura said obviously are true consistent funding, connection, those kinds of things are what creates this behemoth of child sponsorship that exists in the nonprofit world and in the dollars that are being given. The connection is so important and for me, I feel like that is the driving factor behind why people do sponsorship, because it's not just will you help a child in need, it's hey, will you help John, will you help Denise, will you help this person? And it's harder to say no. We can be as humans. We can be more empathetic, right when you put a face and it's not just a name on paper, it's not just a number or a case file, it's a real person and so it compels us because of the empathy that we as humans have for each other, and so that connection is a huge driving factor, right, because that is something that's good for the human good.
Speaker 4:But we also saw on the downside and it's like we say on our website, as you quoted that it can perpetuate this mindset of paternalism and saviorism. We didn't beat around the bush when we put that on our website, and so, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting rid of our sponsorship program, we wanted to alter it. We wanted to change it, and so how can we keep the good aspects of it and try to avoid these negative aspects of it? And so what we did and one of the things that's interesting about sponsorship programs is almost all one-to-one sponsorship programs that exist globally are really program sponsorships. You know, we say child sponsorship, but almost all of them nobody's setting aside the $30 you give every month, and this $30 is only for this child. You're always kind of going into a pool and all the children are bending and fitting, but then you're being connected one-to-one to a child, right, all the children are benefiting, but then you're being connected one-to-one to a child, right.
Speaker 4:And one of the things we didn't like as an organization was that that's not very clear to donors, and it didn't feel ethical or moral to allow donors to kind of operate from this mindset that the money they give is going directly to the child when really it's not. And so one of the first changes we decided to make is let's be fully upfront and honest about where your support is going and how you're really supporting the program. And you know that was a. It's just a such a simple shift to make as well, just in the language you put in your website and the information they could send out into a donor packet, you know. And so, in not wanting to lose that connection, you know we ended up in, as you said here, we we send you three focus children, you know. So, rather than matching you with one child, we're going of those, you know, mindsets of saviorism and paternalism, but having three children opens up your mind a little bit to be aware that, hey, I'm helping many children on this program through my monthly gift.
Speaker 1:A follow-up question. A 2013 study of more than 10,000 children in six countries found there was an increase of between one to one and a half additional years of schooling for sponsored children, and a secondary school completion was 11 and a half to 16 and a half percent higher. The study also found a slight increase in the probability of salaried employment and white collar employment. Do you think it was child sponsorship that caused this impact or was it some other factor and if so, what would that factor be?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so, yeah, interesting statistics, you know increases in the years that children are in school, increases in employment. You know, my assumption is that it is that funds are known to be coming in, guaranteed funding. Right, that changes how an organization works. Again, we pointed this out as one of the benefits of a sponsorship program, a dedicated donor program, that we know every month this much money is coming in. So now we as an organization can budget and so now we're more likely to be able to employ a full time person rather than just hiring somebody on a contract basis for one time work. Right, you know, it allows our programming to not just be those one-time events like we're going to facilitate a medical outreach, or we're going to do wheelchair distributions or we're going to do a family economic workshop. Right, those are, you know, one-time things that can stay one-time things. But when you have guaranteed money coming in now, it makes sense to hire somebody full-time and make a plan for the whole year, right?
Speaker 4:Same thing with school. When you know money is coming in, okay, we know that we're going to be able to send this child all the way through this grade because we know that the funding is coming in, so let's enroll them in school, right. What's interesting, though, is I actually just came across this statistic today, and this might be a suggestion for a follow-up episode, but I was watching a TED Talk, and they were talking about something similar about the increases of rates that children living in the Global South and what factors them into staying in school longer, what factors them into staying in school longer and the biggest factor was parents being educated about the importance of education for their children had a tremendous higher statistic than other things like full scholarships and transportation and all these other things. So, yeah, interesting, and transportation and all these other things.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, interesting, kelly, from your organization's monthly giving program appeal called Defenders, are you passionate about protecting children and ensuring they grow up in safe, loving families? Together we can make a difference by reducing abuse, violence and the heartbreaking reality of children growing up without safety and care. With your monthly contribution, no matter how big or small, you'll be empowering frontline workers, providing support, resources and advocacy to create lasting change for children. Every child deserves to be safe, protected and thrive in a nurturing environment. Your commitment can help make that a reality. Join us in this vital mission. Together we can be the voice for those who need it most and build a brighter, safer future for every child. Become a Defender today. Okay, kelly, why do you call it Defenders? And excuse me for not already knowing, but was it once a child sponsorship program and how is it different from child sponsorship? I guess that's more than one question.
Speaker 5:Thank you for your insightful questions, melody. The decision to name our monthly giving program the Defenders stemmed from a complete restructure, a profound desire to encapsulate the essence of our mission. We were keenly aware of this historical baggage associated with traditional child sponsorship programs, including our own, and the entwinement, shall I say, of the unethical and colonial type associations that go alongside that. Recognising this, we felt the urgent need to swiftly transition away from child sponsorship towards a more ethical and holistic approach. So, yes, we used to be a child sponsorship programme, we used to have that within our sort of fundraising model and a huge amount of our support came in through child sponsorship every year. The former CEO would say it was the bread and butter of our UK organisation. We were known by the sponsorship programme that we did through churches and it was very, very successful.
Speaker 5:But with the transition that we made, we decided that we needed to make it quickly and we did not have something to move to at that point. But we felt that very desperate urge to do that and so, in our pursuit of a new programme further down the line, we decided on a name that would not only resonate deeply with our mission of safeguarding children and families and igniting community transformation, but also it marks a departure from the outdated practices that we did have. So we embarked on a quest for a title of the programme that would evoke powerful imagery and convey a very clear message. So this led us to choose the Defenders, and for several compelling reasons. Really, we felt it was important to have that real, clear mission alignment and we felt this would seamlessly align with our mission to safeguard children and families and foster community transformation. It also unmistakably communicates to donors how their support drives meaningful outcomes. Still, and that's the important part, the change doesn't mean that it's less significant. The impact is less and really it propels our collective endeavour forward, empowerment being another element. The name embodies this notion that donors are absolutely able to affect tangible change in the lives of children and families without the child sponsorship model, empowering them to take decisive action and champion what is just Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility, after all.
Speaker 5:And then the unity and solidarity part by addressing our supporters as defenders, we are cultivating a sense of unity, a solidarity within our community of givers, underscoring their integral role in a collective pursuit of a common cause. And we wanted it to be inspiring, we wanted it to be motivating, um serving as a beacon of inspiration, um motivating prospective donors to join our cause, and it frames their contributions still as vital acts of defense and protection and fostering a sense of purpose and significance. Um, and then again, like with the child sponsorship program um laura shared earlier about, you know people give, and when. When they sign up to a child sponsorship program, we're hoping that they're going to sign up for a long-term commitment. Um. So by embracing the names, the defenders for our monthly giving program, we're again underscoring and enduring dedication to our cause, and it inspires donors to forge long-lasting connections still and persistently advocate for positive change.
Speaker 5:But even more importantly, the bible emphasizes that god has a special place in his heart for the fatherless, presenting himself as their father who loves, cher, cherishes, protects and values them. And scriptures to us in our organisation as a faith-based organisation, such as Psalm 68, verse 5, and Psalm 10, 17 to 18, they highlight God's role as a defender of widows and orphans and ensuring that they are heard and not overlooked. So, as believers, we're called to emulate God's compassion by reaching out to communities of the fatherless and guiding them towards a relationship with their true father. So, unlike traditional child sponsorship, which typically centres on individual child support through one donor. The Defenders programme takes more of a holistic approach and it empowers donors to support frontline workers um, as well as advocating for policy change and providing resources that extend far beyond the confine.
Speaker 5:What you know used to be just in the individual sponsorship um, and, like jared said, you know when he's looking at it and and giving donors um stories of multiple children. It's that same concept of being able to see that their monthly gift is going way beyond just affecting one child and one child is enough. But when you can do so much more through your monthly gift and it affect long term change, not just short term change, it's vital that we really consider that. So this comprehensive strategy enables us to tackle the systemic issues and fosters sustainability, change that positively impacts entire communities. So, in essence, our Defenders programme is all about fostering unity, empowerment and long-term commitment, and it invites donors to join us in our mission to protect children in families and build a brighter future for all. So together, as defenders, we can make a real, tangible difference in the lives of children and communities, ensuring that every child can grow up in a safe and nurturing environment.
Speaker 1:Kelly, I really appreciate the thoughtful way that your organization approached this and, laura, I'm going to give you a chance to share why you advocated so fiercely for HCW to stop using the terminology child sponsor, and how new family empowerment advocacy program, the new program that has replaced child sponsorship, how you advocated for that language instead, and how it's different. But first I want to share with our listeners a recent marketing appeal I came across for child sponsorship while I was researching for this episode and I found this particularly troubling, precisely because we used to use similar language the unbreakable bond and lasting relationship you build. That was a language they used in an article on Mission of Hope International's webpage that purported to offer advice on how to evaluate Christian child sponsorship programs and how you would know you're making the best decision for you and the child. Of course, it ends with a donate link to Mission of Hope International Sponsorship. Laura, do you agree?
Speaker 3:that's a positive argument for child sponsorship programs, to be honest appeals like that make me really uncomfortable and I think that's partly because of all of the thinking and talking that we've done about it over the past five years, and I'm appreciative of Jared's being radically honest in his response in ways that child sponsorship programs haven't really been about how this thing actually works and that your $30 isn't really going to this individual child.
Speaker 3:That's going into the program, all of those things. I think that it is important as you're making a shift like this. That part of it is you're educating donors, first of all, as to what they were actually doing as a sponsor and how that actually really worked because it's not the way that sponsors think that it did and then why you're making this shift. To follow on Jared's honesty and be radically honest and say an uncomfortable thing I think child sponsorship models create kind of an illusion of a close relationship. But I've asked myself, and I think sponsors should ask themselves how close are you really to a child with whom you exchange letters two or three or four times a year? What is the nature of that quote unquote relationship? I mean.
Speaker 3:I've sat in rooms where children have written letters to their sponsors off of a template or you know something written on a blackboard, and I think that's just the uncomfortable truth of how some of these things happen. I think if you tease it out to what really matters, what a sponsor or a donor really wants out of a dedicated donor program that's connected to another human life, of course they want to know that their monthly or yearly donation has excuse me, has an impact on the real life of another human being, another human being. But I think there are ways to do that without creating an illusion of a relationship that maybe isn't completely based in reality. And here's something that makes me even more uncomfortable about the child sponsorship programs and that's the sort of unintended consequences that come out of that. One thing is that it often places a sponsor in a savior role with a vulnerable child that actually exists in a family. And I have to ask myself how does an impoverished father whose child is receiving support from a child sponsorship program, how does he feel, seeing that the child is receiving things from this foreign donor that he cannot provide for his own child? How does that undermine his dignity and his sense of self-worth and just status in his own family and maybe even in the community. And we've seen some really inappropriate things with sponsors in the past, in the sense that they have almost a sense of entitlement that comes with having donated money. Right, I've donated $300 this year, and so I don't understand why my child that's also language that makes me uncomfortable but my child isn't attending the school that I think they should attend. Or, you know, I want to send my child a special gift that I'm willing to pay for myself in addition to my sponsorship, and I don't understand why I'm not permitted to do that. And so we've had to have really hard conversations with people about well, how do you think that children in the community who aren't sponsored feel when you do that? Or how do kids in the same family, even who don't receive the gift or aren't sponsored because sponsorship programs sometimes limit the number of children that can be sponsored in a given family what do you think the impacts of those kinds of things are? And that business about my family you put the picture on the refrigerator and this is my child. That child actually sort of negates the reality that that child actually has a family. They are the child of someone else, the real child of someone else, and so it just.
Speaker 3:It was part of my whole discomfort and my need to kind of push for for something different. And we did have conversations around whether we should hang on to the word sponsorship and just make it a family sponsorship program instead of a child sponsorship program, with the idea that the sponsors would make the one-to-one connection. They would go oh, it's just a different kind of sponsorship program. And we deliberately decided to lose the sponsorship language because we wanted to take that opportunity to educate our dedicated donors that this was something different, that this is something different than what their expectation of sponsorship had been. I think one of the radical truths about child sponsorship models is that they create a framework where the sponsor becomes the hero of the story. But we were asking ourselves who really should be the hero of a child's story and is there a way to create a dedicated donor program and engage donors in a way that they could feel really happy and excited about being a part of helping make the caregiver or the parent the hero of a family story and you as an advocate could walk alongside on that journey? I think maybe trying to put people in the right roles in ways that I think the child sponsorship model doesn't.
Speaker 3:So the other reason why we made this transition this was kind of an outgrowth of transitioning from an orphanage model where it was easy to tie a donor to a child because that child was isolated from a family Once we started moving them back into families and the program on the ground started saying well, you know what, the best way to care about a child or care for a child is to care for the carer of that child. So the program became more family focused and then we realized, well, this family focus that's happening on the crown doesn't connect to this child focus that's happening with donors, and it became a disconnect. It undermined the dignity and agency of parents to care for their own children according to their values, and it just wasn't mirroring the way that our partners were working at that time. And so we realized, hey, we transitioned the orphanage model because it was the best thing for kids. But as mission leaders and partners we need to be asking ourselves if our approach, including our fundraising model, is engaging us in God's mission to care for all of his children by strengthening families and communities, and for all those who care for those children, while honoring the role of mothers and fathers in a child's life.
Speaker 3:So we use the word advocate to try to help our dedicated donors understand their roles better. The word advocate to try to help our dedicated donors understand their roles better. To truly empower people, you have to build their capacity and get out of the limelight yourself, and we're not trying to. We're trying to empower the families, the vulnerable families on the ground, and you can't be in the middle of that. You can be on the sideline of that, you can be the supporter of that, you can be the defender of that or the advocate of that, but you can't be right smack in the middle of that. So we want the parents and the caregivers to take center stage, we want them to wear the cape, we want them to be the heroes of this story and we ask our advocates to walk alongside and cheer them on and support the program that's building their capacity and strengthening them toward independence and self-sufficiency.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Laura. I have to say that the second part of this episode is, if you can believe it, going to get even a little more controversial, because we want to take some head-on. Look at the things that drove you as individuals, you as advocates on behalf of children and you as leaders in the OVC response community to make this change.
Speaker 2:This podcast is for people interested in deep conversations with thought leaders in the fields of child welfare, global health and international missions.
Speaker 1:We hope you come back for the next episode of Optimistic Voices, which is the second half of our interview with Kelly and Jared and Laura. It is a big messy world out there with no lack of need, but at Optimistic Voices we believe that with radical honesty, radical courage and radical collaboration we truly together can change the world.
Speaker 6:Thank you, Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us, you can find us at Helping Children Worldwide on Instagram, linkedin, twitter and Facebook Hashtag Optimistic Voices Podcast.
