World Vision's work is guided by the conviction that children, just like adults, have the right to participate in decisions and actions that affect their lives. Through child sponsorship, we also recognise that children can be powerful agents of change in their families and communities.
Child sponsorship places children at the centre of development activities. It also elevates the status of children in their own families and makes them important ambassadors for the wellbeing of their communities.
Many of our project activities actively encourage children's participation in community life in ways that are appropriate to their age and capabilities. These activities help children to develop essential skills and build confidence in their ability to have a positive impact on the world around them.
In many sponsorship communities, it is the children who are creating awareness and leading change in areas such as nutrition and hygiene, gender roles, environmental protection and child rights.
- In Indonesia, sponsored children used National Children's Day celebrations as an opportunity to raise awareness about the need for parents to register their children for birth certificates and ensure their fundamental right to identity.
- In Natunoy village in Laos, children actively participated in a recent community planning day and helped to draw up a dream map of their village that included a new school, water pumps, footballs, trees and animals.
- In Zambia's Keembe Area Development Program, children elected to a Junior Program Management Committee share in decision making about development activities in their community. "There are some people who think that we cannot do anything because we are just children," says committee member and sponsored child Tanamera. "But together as children we will work with the elders so that they can also learn from us what we, as children, need."
These are just a few of the many ways that World Vision's transformational development programs are enabling children to help change the world.