Child sponsorship is often billed as a significant way of improving children’s lives. However, sponsorship is based on narratives that fail to address the role of rich countries in global poverty.
World Vision sponsors could choose a child in the mid-1970s by pasting one of these stamps with their likeness on a mail-in card.
World Vision International archives
No matter who chooses whom, many sponsors of children in need see God as the real driving force when they enter this arrangement with far-away strangers.
Kids in South Sudan await a daily meal from World Vision.
AP Photo/Sam Mednick
Not everyone’s a fan of this fundraising approach. But it does bring the needs of children in developing communities to the attention of many Americans.