Child sponsorship changes the world

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 7 July 2013.

A development economist has found that child sponsorship is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty and change the world.

Writing in the Journal of Political Economy, University of San Francisco development economist Bruce Wydick reports the findings of a major study of child sponsorship in Uganda, Guatemala, the Philippines, India, Kenya and Bolivia.

In all six countries, sponsored children were 27 to 40 per cent more likely to complete secondary school, and 50 to 80 per cent more likely to complete a university education, 14-18 per cent more likely to obtain a salaried job, and 35 per cent more likely to obtain a white-collar job.

As former President of Compassion, Wess Stafford, said, “Poverty causes children to have very low self-esteem, low aspirations. The big difference that sponsorship makes is that it expands children’s views about their own possibilities.”

If you want to change the world, sponsor a child.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.