Sponsor a child as a school

Begin your sponsorship

For just 65p a day, your class or school can change a child’s life for good when you become a sponsor with ActionAid.

Your support could transform the life of a girl like eleven-year-old Jharna from Bangladesh. Thanks to child sponsorship, she is the first member of her family to go to school, and spends her free time at her local ActionAid centre where she can play in safety with her friends.

Through our child sponsorship programme we can reach more girls like Jharna. Your sponsorship would make a huge difference to a child in need — ensuring they have enough to eat, an education and hope for the future.

As their only sponsor, your pupils will have a special relationship with your sponsored child and get a unique insight into their life. Sponsor a child today and see for yourself the difference your support can make.

Sponsor a child

ActionAid UK

What will our school get when we sponsor a child?

As soon as you sign up, we’ll send a welcome pack with a photo of the child you’re sponsoring and their story so far.

You’ll go on a journey together, with two handwritten messages a year from your child about themself and their life – they might be letters, drawings, or postcards. Over time you’ll get a new photo at special milestones so you can see them grow and thrive.

Your pupils can write back to their sponsored child. Through sending and receiving messages they will develop a one-to-one relationship and gain a unique insight into the change they are helping to create.

All our schools receive a FREE assembly or workshop each year and we can also provide balloons, stickers, collection boxes and fundraising ideas to help you raise money for your sponsorship.

Sponsor a child as a school

What teachers say

Our school sponsors Richard from Tanzania. He is the same age as many pupils, likes football, loves maths, and wants to be a doctor. He lost his parents to AIDS, and feels responsible for his two younger siblings.

The children have written to Richard, and have been delighted to receive letters back. This individual and personal tie has made the difference to so many of our children.

Denise Harris, Cranford Church of England Primary School

Where does our sponsorship money go?

80% of your sponsorship money goes overseas to help your child and their community. (20% is spent in the UK on public education and finding more sponsors). And the community decides what the money should be spent on.

7-year-old girl Sandrine eating lunch with three other children in Shingiro District, Rwanda

Food

Two boys Chit Phyo, 8, wearing checked shirt and Hein Thus, 9, collect water for their school from a in a village in the Dry zone (Magway Region), Myanmar(Burma).

Clean water

Healthcare

Smiling girl Kadiatu Sesay wearing blue school uniform sitting at her desk in a classroom at Kola Tree Community School, Western Area, Sierra Leone

Education

You can be sure we’ll achieve as much as possible with every pound you give us. And you’ll be able to see the difference you’re making through the regular updates we’ll send on how your money’s being spent.

“It’s amazing to see what a difference such a small amount of money a month can make to a whole community”.

Richard Jordan, ActionAid child sponsor

How sponsorship helps children

Food and shelter

Many children in developing countries go hungry every day, and often have to travel long distances to collect water.

We’ll make sure your sponsored child has nutritious food to eat, clean water to drink, and a safe place to call home: the basics that every child needs to grow and thrive.

Sponsor a child as a school

Education

Sponsoring a child helps them get the high- quality education they’re entitled to. Your sponsorship might pay for their schoolbooks, fees, uniform or equipment, or make sure they can get to school safely.

It could even pay for desks, a classroom or a whole new school building in the village or town where your child lives.

Sponsor a child as a school

Community

Child sponsorship doesn’t just help one child – it helps other children and families in their community to transform their lives too.

Our staff live and work in the area where your child is growing up. So they’re perfectly placed to know what your child and their community needs right now — and crucially, what will help them most in the long-term — and they work together to make these improvements happen.

Sponsor a child as a school

Lasting change

When you sponsor a child with ActionAid, you’ll find out it’s one of the best ways to help a child out of poverty and give them the tools for a better future. You’ll see at every step of your journey how your support brings real and lasting change for your child and their community.

Sponsor a child as a school

ActionAid

How child sponsorship helped Purna fulfil her dream

Purna is a midwife and a mother. Here she’s holding up a photo of herself aged 12 – when she was sponsored and her life changed forever.

Growing up in rural Nepal, Purna’s family were very poor. Her mother couldn’t afford to send her to school. But then a sponsor stepped in, and that money paid for school clothes, paper and pencils.

So Purna got to go to school, finish her education and fulfil her dream of becoming a nurse, and then a midwife. Now she practises in a health clinic.

She’s helped to deliver hundreds of babies, saved many lives and provided medicine and care to many more mothers and children. She also has two daughters of her own. One is a nurse and the other is studying for her MD.

“Being without education is like being blind. [But my sponsor] opened my eyes. Because of them I was also able to open the eyes of my children. Education is very important.”

Sponsor a child as a school

Photo credits: Karin Schermbrucker, Greg Funnell, Nicolas Axelrod, Caroline Thomas, Savann Oeurm, Des Willie, Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati / ActionAid.

Sponsor a child

Help keep a child like Jharna in school.

Begin your sponsorship

What will our school get when we sponsor a child?

What teachers say

Where does our sponsorship money go?

Food

Clean water

Healthcare

Education

How sponsorship helps children

Food and shelter

Education

Community

Lasting change

How child sponsorship helped Purna fulfil her dream

Footnotes