Visiting a Sponsor Child - Part Two

Hello again!

Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog. If you remember a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to visit my dad's cousin's sponsor child in Visiting a Sponsor Child - Part One. Here is part 2 of that story, detailing how my day went visiting Jackeline.

I met Soledad, the Compassion trips coordinator at my house at 9:30 am sharp (I love it when things start on time!). We took two taxis (for a little over an hour total) to San Juan de Lurigancho, a district in Lima, where Jackeline lives. We had a great trip: she answered all of the questions that I had, gave me information about the family I was about to visit, and chatted about different things in Lima. A great start to the day.

Our first stop was at the local Compassion office. Here we met the Director, Marisol, and the Manager, Ilda, and they explained how the office works and what they do. Here are a few pictures to describe the location.

Kids learn about life skills: physical (to determine when they are sick with diseases such as Tuberculosis or Diarrhea), socio - emocional (to talk things through instead of to fight), spiritual (not to have fear, God is with you), cognitive (I am smart, I can do it). The examples in each category change each day, and they have a discussion with the Compassion staff about it to gain awareness and self-esteem.

Visiting a Sponsor Child - Part One

Good morning!

Several weeks ago, my Dad's cousin went for dinner at our house in Ottawa, and they ended up talking about the fact that I am in Peru, about the type of work that I am doing, etc. My Dad's cousin (Rod) told my Dad that he was actually sponsoring a child through Compassion Canada, and that she lives on the outskirts of Lima. In the days following that supper meeting, emails were exchanged, and the topic of visiting the sponsor child came up. I offered to go meet her (much to Rod's delight), thus starting a 2-month process to get everything organized and put into place.

At the beginning of March, I had a business trip to Cajamarca with one of my colleagues as a part of the pilot project and implementation of the National Pollutant Release Inventory in Peru. On our flight to Cajamarca, the topic of sponsor children came up - without me even mentioning the fact that I might be visiting one too, that our family used to sponsor a child in Bolivia, and that I know of many others who also send money abroad on a monthly basis. He brought up the case of a few organizations that work in Peru, go into certain communities, snap pictures of children, and then post them on the web for all to see in the hopes of receiving more donations. But then, where does most of the money go? Printing costs, administration, visits, phone calls, mailing documents, etc..... and perhaps very little of it actually reaches the child and the family that the funds are directed to. Some organizations are better than others he said (and some flat out don't deliver what they promise), but it is still not a very effective way to reach out to others in his opinion.