ActionAid encourages and fosters a special relationship between child sponsors and sponsored children.
As part of the commitment to that relationship, many sponsors like to have the opportunity to send gifts to their sponsored children around the world.
For this reason, we have created the Gift Fund to make gift-giving easy, cost-efficient and fair.
What is the Gift Fund?
The Gift Fund allows child sponsors to donate towards meaningful gifts - not just for their sponsored child, but for the whole community that their sponsored child is part of.
Small donations from existing child sponsors are pooled together to create the fund.
The sponsored children then decide how best to spend the donations. They usually ask for sporting equipment, books, school bags and toys.
ActionAid sources these gifts as locally and sustainably as possible and distributes the gifts to all the children in the chosen school or community.
How to contribute if you are a child sponsor
- Call our Supporter Contact Team on 01460 238 000 to make a debit or credit card donation. Our lines are open from Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm.
- Send a cheque, made payable to ActionAid. Please include your supporter reference number and clearly state that you are donating to the Gift Fund. Please send the cheque to the following address: ActionAid, Child Sponsorship Office, Chard Business Park, Jarman Way, Chard, Somerset TA20 1FB.
- You can also contribute to the Gift Fund online.
Child sponsorship Gift Fund: your questions answered
Why contribute to the Gift Fund?
- The Gift Fund makes gift-giving easy, cost-effective and fair.
- 100% of Gift Fund donations are spent on the children. And they're spent on not just one child, but as many as possible in the community.
- There are no postage or delivery costs, so every penny is spent on the gifts.
- The Gift Fund provides gifts the children need, and gifts they choose themselves, like uniforms, sports equipment, notebooks, pens and pencils.
- We can purchase items locally, which means better value for money. It also means you'll be helping the local economy in the community where you're sponsored child lives.
The Gift Fund in action in Ghana
Thanks to the gift fund, Ester is among 57 girls and boys to received notepads and pens in her community in Ghana.
Ester said: “In January 2021, I moved to form 1 in Junior High School, where we are required to buy 14 new exercise books for copying notes in class. My mum was unable to buy them for me.
"So, when I heard the news that our sponsors had donated some money and that we could decide how that money would be spent, I was so excited.
“We were asked to think of ideas on how the gift fund would be spent. The top three most popular ideas were then put to the vote. I really needed exercise books for my lessons, so I voted for these.”
"Being part of this decision-making process makes me feel my views are important and respected.
"The books, pens and pencils I have been given means that Mum doesn’t have to worry about buying me stationery for school. I am going to study hard, my dream is to be a nurse so that I can help my mother."
Esther (2nd from left) is among 57 girls and boys to receive notepads and pens in Jirapa and Lambussie, Ghana.
Lambert Dasiene/ActionAid
Having spent much of her time at school sitting on a broken desk, 11-year-old Yuridia was delighted to see the new desks in her classroom in La Libertad, Guatemala
Gloria Elvira Pop Tux/ActionAid
New desks for children in La Libertad, Guatemala
Having spent much of her time at school sitting on a broken desk, 11-year-old Yuridia Melisa was delighted to see the new desks in her classroom, thanks to the donations child sponsors have made to the Gift Fund in her community in Guatemala.
"In our school many desks were needed - every day I had to go from classroom to classroom to find a desk to receive my classes. We have a lot of desks in very bad shape," Yuridia said.
"I am very happy because now we have new desks."
Page updated 2 March 2023
