Child Sponsorship Program 2018
Child Sponsorship Program 2018
Now in its third year, our Child Sponsorship Program is supporting 18 orphaned children at the Bal Mandir Orphanage. The aim of the Program is to work with the orphans and the orphanage to create lasting and meaningful changes by supporting the children through years of schooling and helping to create a healthy and happy community.
Sponsors from Australia and Canada are helping to create a positive future for the children. We have been keeping donors in contact with their sponsored child and provide letter exchange and progress reports annually. Not only is the program linking sponsors more closely to the orphan community their donations are helping, the children also understand and appreciate that there are families in other countries who are genuinely concerned with their welfare.
Every year, in addition to individual sponsorships, we attempt to complete a project that is of benefit to the orphanage community. As reported last year, we were able to complete a water capture, storage and filtration system at the school where the orphans live and study which was of great benefit particularly during the dry season. This year, we were able to source special funding from donors to replace the beds for all the children including bedding material (see photo below).
We were also able to place two pre-service teachers from Australia at the School where the orphans attend for four weeks and an additional four teachers for three days working directly with the orphans. After school hours and during holidays, the teachers were able to provide additional tuition to help boost their study techniques and English communication skills which is part of the Nepali curriculum.
The children have struggled writing letters to their sponsors and so the Principal of the orphanage made a special request for help. As a result, the teachers ran a special three-day letter writing workshop to help the children reflect on what they achieved during the year and how to express this in their letter. At the completion of the program, we were able to collect letters from all of the children for distribution to their sponsors. We were particularly excited at how artistic the children were when they produced beautiful artworks for their sponsors.
