Child Sponsorship

We recently paid a courtesy visit to one of the schools that had recruited two of our sponsored children. Today, they are professional primary school teachers, impacting children’s lives with the same care once extended to them. They had a lot to share about their journeys, but let’s zero in on Christine.

The first impression of her is striking. She smiles warmly, a smile that immediately assures you her pupils are in safe hands. But who is Christine?

Christine, now 35, grew up in Busia District, in a polygamous family. Her mother was one of her father’s five wives and she had four siblings and 53 half-siblings. Her father, a university lecturer, worked hard to provide, but dividing resources among nearly 60 children left little for anyone.

Tragedy struck when Christine was just 10 years old. Her father passed away. With their main source of income gone, Christine, her mother and siblings moved in with her grandmother. They struggled to have meals and clothing.

Christine with one of her children.

At this difficult time, Christine’s sponsor stepped in to support. “The monthly gift of sh12,000 kept food on the table and made sure we stayed in school,” she recalls with gratitude.

As she grew older, the impact of sponsorship became even clearer. Christine attended life-skills sessions where she learned how to protect herself and navigate adolescence safely. “I learned protection from strangers, protection from boys who would come and disturb me. I now had those life skills to be safe,” she says.

Christine’s leadership potential also blossomed. She was chosen to represent children on the Youth Advisory Council, a regional forum where young people shared their challenges and ideas with government officials. “It gave me courage. I realized our voices mattered.”

With her sponsor’s steady support, Christine completed school, something few of her peers achieved. “Most of my agemates dropped out and got married young,” she adds. “If it weren’t for the program, I would be one of them. My life would have been wasted in the village.”

Instead, Christine pursued her dream of becoming a teacher. For the past 15 years, she has been teaching in a primary school not far from where she grew up.

In 2012 she married and is now the proud mother of three children, two boys and a girl. “When you interact with children every day you stay young,” she says with a laugh. “Playing with the children, smiling, jumping up and down with them, it brings me joy.”

Judith, Cecilia and Christine share a light moment shortly after the interview.

ChildFund still works in the school where Christine teaches, providing textbooks, sanitary pads, sponsorship opportunities and remedial programs in literacy and numeracy. “ChildFund helps advocate for children’s rights and education,” she says. “This is important in a community that doesn’t value education as much as it should.”

“For sure, my life would be very different without sponsorship,” she says. “If I could talk to Ursula, my sponsor, I would first give her a big hug. I always pray for God to bless her because she was always there for me,” She concludes.