Sponsor a Child with SOS Children UK
Sponsoring a child is a very effective way of helping lone children to experience the love of a family and mother. In return you can see the real impact that your support makes. Our child sponsors often tell us they get a warm satisfaction of seeing a little girl or boy with nothing grow up into an independent happy person thanks to child sponsorship. A lot of us, in the SOS Children office in Cambridge, sponsor children abroad too. Sponsor online here (requires bank ac number and sort code; bank address now automatic).
If you wish you can choose a country from most of the 125 countries in which SOS Children works by clicking on the maps at our Child Sponsorship Directory, or you can leave us to decide where the need is greatest at present. If you fill in the online sponsorship form please tell us what you want in the instruction box: we will read this carefully and do our best.
Sponsorship varies a bit between charities. Some people offer children for sponsorship whom they do not actually care for. However if you sponsor a child with us, you will be helping orphaned or abandoned children to grow up in a family with a mother, brothers and sisters, and a home of their own. You will be able to write to them and learn how they grow up with love. You will also be helping us to help other orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children and their families in the local communities. For £20 a month (the cost in the UK of sponsoring a child), you can help children who have nothing and no-one. Sponsor online here for UK donors.
Alternatively if you live in the US or Canada and want to sponsor a child go to: Child Sponsorship from North America.
Child sponsorship admin costs
No deductions are made from the sponsors' payments for administration. We are very grateful for work done by volunteers in our Cambridge office, which helps keep our costs low. Our administrative costs will be met by unrestricted donations and from tax we recover through Gift Aid. All sponsorship payments therefore go 100% to the charity's work for and around the sponsored child. For other details, including our response to occasional objections raised, see our Child Sponsorship FAQs.
Sponsoring African AIDS orphans
The children in our villages are children whose parents are not there for them. If you sponsor a child in Africa, in particular, the chances are quite high that they have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. For social reasons and to avoid stigmatisation, we help any child who has lost his or her parents without establishing the cause of death etc.
However, perhaps 80% of the HIV/AIDS orphans we help are supported in their own family homes and it is only possible to sponsor children who live with us in one of our villages(mainly for reasons of administration costs). If you would like to support HIV/AIDS orphans in the community please just make a regular donation to SOS and specify what you would like it to be used for.
We keep looking after the children until they are old enough to be independent: we stay long after the cameras have left. Our sponsors get regular news and contact from their child, and you are welcome to write to them, send them small gifts at Christmas or birthday and, as they get older, to visit them. If you would like more of an idea of what is involved, why not read Sponsor/Child Testimonials or phone us up for a chat? We are always happy to explain how sponsorship works in practice and answer particular questions. When you complete the forms online you can fill in instructions in the form or request that we contact you. At any given time you can choose to sponsor children in most of our 473 Villages, and in almost all of the 125 countries where we help children, but we can guide you where the current need is greatest. You can also state preferences on the age etc of the child you would prefer. If you have visited one of our projects and know the name of a particular child, we will try to accommodate you. If your circumstances change at any time, you are free to cancel your direct debit. All payments for sponsorship are covered by the direct debit guarantee.
Whenever we see a little boy or girl in desperate need around the world the natural instinct is to go and help them; but thinking through the practicalities prevents this from happening... we have commitments here, they often speak another language, and it is just not cost-effective or sensible to rush out and try to help a single child. Sponsorship is a natural extension of this instinct, but by sponsoring through a charity like SOS Children you are able to ensure someone from the local community helps the little one in the best possible way to them. It is the right way to fulfil our instincts to help. So, why not sponsor now? Many people sponsor children with us to match the ages of their own children or grandchildren; it can be a great way to keep children in touch with the greater world picture and of the ways in which we are relatively fortunate in general in the first world. It is also possible to support a whole village and be kept informed about the community as a whole.