How Sponsorship Works

The double disadvantage of poverty and disability is a matter of life and death. As a cbm Child Sponsor, your gifts are working in the poorest countries, where up to 80% of children with a disability will die without help.

You are helping to straighten children’s limbs. You are restoring sight. Children who are deaf will hear. Children rejected because of their disability are being welcomed into school. You are helping to improve their lives forever.

A Different Kind of Sponsorship

The first clear difference with cbm Child Sponsorship is its focus on children with a disability – kids too often forgotten by national health and educational programs, by their communities and too often by other development programs. In poor communities, disability creates immense hardship.

Children are often hidden away out of shame and superstition. Schools often turn away children with disabilities. Families slide further into poverty, because caring for children with disabilities leaves less time and energy to make a living.

The second main difference with cbm Child Sponsorship is that one featured child each year represents all the children being helped.

Traditional child sponsorship matches each sponsor to a specific child. This is complex and expensive to run.

Our program is far less expensive to administer, which means much more of your monthly gift is spent improving children’s lives, not on running costs.

This also means cbm Child Sponsors get a very detailed picture of how their gifts are working. With Fred, for example, you’ll find out more about his life, his family and his amazing transformation than is usually ever possible with ordinary child sponsorship. Trust Canadians to find a new way to make better use of their money, while saving more lives and caring for more children.

cbm Child Sponsorship works in three main ways:

1. FINDING: children with a disability are often hidden away in dark corners or overlooked by governments or aid programs. Your gifts help find them.
2. LIFE-SAVING ACTION: children with disabilities often need urgent medical care or intensive rehabilitation. Your sponsorship saves their lives.
3. CONTINUING CARE: once a child’s impairment is treated, we can’t send them back alone. Your Forgotten Child Sponsorship helps break down the traditional fear of disability, so children are welcomed back into their families, schools and communities.

cbm works with local partners to create a 12-month plan for each child.