THE SPONSORED CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

Each time we travel to Ethiopia we also meet up in Abugida with the families who have been sponsored. Because if you sponsor a child you also sponsor its family.
Sponsoring does not mean supporting a family and then the family falls by the wayside.

The sponsorship enables them to live much better because these are families that were previously living in conditions of extreme poverty and they can now rely on a fixed amount of money each month and from there onwards the men and women, with the exception of those who are sick, work in whatever way they can to increase their income.
Even the sick people work if their circumstances allow them to. Many of the men and women are much stronger than they were before because they are now able to eat a much better diet.
For example we have a mother with a chronic illness who thanks to our sponsorship scheme has been able to set up a small market stall selling cereals and she is really happy.
Fortunately the sponsorship programme works really well.

We have sponsor fathers and mothers who are there from the beginning, giving constant support and commitment and there are others who sign up afterwards. Only very few people have withdrawn their sponsorship and luckily we have always been able to cover this and take over the sponsorship within a very short space of time thanks to the reserve funds we put aside for such situations.
In these times of recession we know that 24 euros is a considerable amount of money for many people and we are therefore extremely grateful for their help.
Many families have been given hope (53 at the present time) and the sponsorships have even prevented families from splitting up due to poverty and children have been saved from going to the orphanage or fending for themselves on the streets.
Many thanks to all the sponsor mothers and fathers.