A Legacy of Selfless Service (Child Sponsorship Program)
Studies have shown the positive connections between World Vision’s child sponsorship program and its participants’ personal well-being and life outcomes, benefitting their academic achievement, aspirations, and health. More importantly, families receive numerous forms of support that contribute to making their lives better. But one of the most overlooked impacts is the effect on a child’s potential to become a helpful community leader.
This study focuses on this encouraging finding. It goes beyond the usual measured impacts (i.e., adult life outcomes in terms of education and employment) and explores the dynamics and consequences of community volunteerism for former participants of World Vision’s child sponsorship program.
It explores the experiences of former sponsored kids and youth leaders, who later went on to volunteer as adults to give back to their own community. More specifically, this study focuses on how the program affected the Locally Empowered Advocates for Development (LEAD) group’s goals and participation in the formation of a women-led cooperative in Southwest Cebu. The research clearly illustrates how the sponsorship program helped develop and hone these former sponsored kids in becoming transformational leaders within their community.
