The Gift of Child Sponsorship

“I would feel jealous of my other classmates,” says Gling Agustin as she looks back at how her schoolmates used to come in with new school supplies while she only had a piece of paper.

The middle child of three siblings, Gling began as a sponsored child at the age of 9. Her father was a farmer while her mother was a housewife. In order to earn, her mother would sell her father’s harvest. Before World Vision arrived in their community, she and her siblings would rely on these earnings to buy school supplies.

“When World Vision came, they became my family’s partner in sending us to school,” Gling shared. When she became a sponsored child, she also began receiving school supplies. This lightened the load for her parents.

Aside from the annual school kits and Christmas packs, Gling thanks World Vision for helping her develop her confidence.

As a youth leader, she attended numerous youth camps during summer where she met other youth leaders who were going through the same circumstances as she was. These fellow youth leaders would turn out to be her longtime friends.

She no longer felt alone in her struggles and this pushed her to excel in school. Gling worked hard and was blessed with numerous scholarships. At the age of 16, she graduated from high school and from World Vision’s Child Sponsorship program.

With enough perseverance and support from generous people, she was able to graduate cum laude from Isabela State University with a degree in accountancy.

Before she earned her title, she taught accountancy in Cagayan Valley Computer Information Technology College for almost 2 years.