We are really pleased you have found this special sponsor a child page. Well over ten thousand people have sponsored online here in the last few years. You can join the best grass-roots movement for those who want to help children all alone to have families! If you sponsor a child for £20 a month (67p a day) , you can help provide love and care for children who have nothing and no-one, and if you are thinking of making a regular donation to charity, child sponsorship is one of the best ways to do it. If you wish you can choose a sponsorship country, or leave us to decide where the need is greatest at present. If you sponsor a child online here we can also try to match age, gender and so on, and we will read your instructions carefully. We will contact you if we cannot match them all exactly. Click on the "Sponsor online" button to sponsor a child whether you live in UK, North America or worldwide.

Child Sponsorship really works:

• A child alone gets a new mother, a family*, new hope
• You see the difference your sponsorship makes*
  
• It is quick and easy to set up a sponsorship online.

* Some other charities offer children who live in the local community with their biological parents as "sponsored children", but we only offer children we care for. See overview of child sponsorship charities for more help choosing the best organisation to sponsor a child.

Sponsoring African AIDS orphans

The children whom you can sponsor live in our villages, and are children whose parents are not there for them. If you sponsor a child in Africa, in particular, the chances are quite high that they have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. For social reasons and to avoid stigmatisation, we help any child who has lost his or her parents without establishing the cause of death etc.

However, perhaps 80% of the HIV/AIDS orphans we help are supported in their own family homes and it is only possible to sponsor children who live with us in one of our villages (mainly for reasons of administration costs). If you would like to support HIV/AIDS orphans in the community please just make a regular donation to SOS and specify what you would like it to be used for.

Child Sponsorship with SOS Children

We keep looking after the children until they are old enough to be independent: we stay long after the cameras have left.

Our sponsors get regular updates about their child and Village, and you are welcome to write to them, send them small monetary gifts for their savings account at Christmas or birthday and to visit them. Please bear in mind that we do not put pressure on our sponsored children to write back to sponsors (if you consider their background you will understand that a number of our children are behind with their education when they join us and letter writing is not part of every culture). Some older children, especially if they are learning English as a second language, do enjoying writing to their sponsors but that is entirely up to them. 

If you would like more of an idea of what is involved, why not read Sponsor/Child Testimonials or phone us up for a chat? We are always happy to explain how sponsorship works in practice and answer particular questions. When you complete the forms online you can fill in instructions in the form or request that we contact you. At any given time you can choose to sponsor children in most of our 545 Villages, and in almost all of the 125 countries where we help children, but we can guide you where the current need is greatest. You can also state preferences on the age etc. of the child you would prefer. If you have visited one of our projects and know the name of a particular child, we will try to accommodate you. If your circumstances change at any time, you are free to cancel your direct debit. All payments for sponsorship are covered by the direct debit guarantee.

Whenever we see a little boy or girl in desperate need around the world the natural instinct is to go and help them; but thinking through the practicalities prevents this from happening... we have commitments here, they often speak another language, and it is just not cost-effective or sensible to rush out and try to help a single child. Sponsorship is a natural extension of this instinct, and by sponsoring through a charity like SOS Children you are able to ensure someone from the local community helps the little one in the best possible way to them. It is the right way to fulfil our instincts to help. So, why not sponsor now? Many people sponsor children with us to match the ages of their own children or grandchildren; it can be a great way to keep children in touch with the greater world picture and of the ways in which we are relatively fortunate in general in the first world. It is also possible to support a whole village and be kept informed about the community as a whole.

Child sponsorship admin costs

No deductions are made from the child sponsors' payments for administration. We are very grateful for work done by volunteers in our Cambridge office, which helps keep our costs low. Our administrative costs will be met by unrestricted donations and from tax we recover through Gift Aid. 100% of all sponsorship donations are used for the care of children. For other details, including our response to occasional objections raised, see our Child Sponsorship FAQs.