Sponsor a child

Child Sponsorship is a programme where your donation supports a child’s education. Education is the first step toward a better future. Unfortunately, poverty often acts as a barrier for many families worldwide, preventing children from accessing the education they deserve. Through sponsorship, children receive the necessary support to access the benefits and opportunities that school provides.

Your donation directly supports your sponsored child’s school fees, covering education and, in some cases, providing a nourishing meal or other school benefits. The specific support may vary depending on the country it goes to.

Yes, we encourage you to write to the child you are sponsoring. You can email or post your letter to our NZ office (no parcels). Alternatively, click here to write your letter today.

Yes, you can, but at an amount of $50 maximum.

It often causes problems for our staff in the receiving country, when expensive presents arrive for one child and not for another. Some children never receive a gift from their sponsor – as you can imagine it is very difficult for them when additional gifts arrive for other children in the programme.

BUT there is an alternative: you can send a donation to our office, which goes to your child – often our staff are able to take the child shopping, otherwise they will buy something appropriate for the child from you. One of the benefits of this is also that we support their local markets, buying from within their own country. If they take the child with them, they then are able to choose what they would like. If you want the money spent on something specific (e.g. clothing) let us know and we will ensure this information is passed on to our partner country. If you send a birthday card through us, please send it to us at least a month before their birthday!

Examples of gifts you could send (if they fit in a normal sized envelope) could be a handkerchief, stickers, pencil case, hair ties or clips. Don’t send war-related items (toy weapons, military figures), food, liquids or lotions, medications or vitamins, toys that need batteries or electricity, breakable or used/damaged items, or anything that wouldn’t normally go in the mail.

We post an envelope at the end of each month to our partner countries, so we can forward letters, stickers, photos, and cards for you. The envelope size we send is a standard DL, so it needs to fit in that. You are welcome to send these to your child – they will be thrilled to receive them. We encourage you to send photos – the children love to know what their sponsors look like. Please don’t send anything heavy (we are sorry, we are unable to post parcels).

If they are going onto tertiary education, we will let you know and you can continue sponsoring them if you wish to. However, once they finish school and do not continue with further education, then the sponsoring stops and we will contact you to let you know.

You are able to sponsor as many children as you wish! If you are able, we would love to encourage you to sponsor multiple children. Sponsorship makes such a big impact on the life of a child, and we are always looking for more sponsors for children in need.

When you sponsor a child, you will be the sole sponsor of that child. However, in a few very specific situations children may have multiple sponsors. If your child has more than one sponsor you will ALWAYS be made aware of this at the start of your sponsorship.

Multiple sponsors may occur when your sponsored child requires additional support, for example if they need to attend a specialised school due to disability or if they are studying at a tertiary level with higher costs and fees.

Yes! We have many children sponsored by groups including schools, churches, companies, youth clubs and more. However, when you sponsor as a group we will still need one person to be the main point of contact to receive updates and letters from your sponsored child to share with the group. We will also need a single payment per month of NZD 55 from your group, so if the payment is being shared across multiple people you will need to organize and manage this yourselves.

Should the individual you assign as point of contact for your sponsorship leave the group, they will need to get in touch with the International Needs NZ office to update their sponsorship and transfer it to the new individual.

In many of the countries we work, students are placed in classes according to ability, not age. Where children have not been able to go to school until later on in their childhood, or where children have only been able to attend school intermittently, classes can become a mixture of children of different ages. In some cases where children do not pass their exams, they may be required to re-sit the year to pass and move onto the next stage of education. This means that sometimes sponsored children may be in a different school level than you would expect them to be in the NZ educational system. It also means that children may be in school until after the age of 18.

You get to be part of your sponsored child’s life and see their transformation. You’ll receive letters and can write back through letters. Some sponsors even visit their child on an International Needs’ Discovery Tour.

For questions about your sponsored child or general questions about sponsorship, please get in touch with the International Needs’ Education Programme Coordinator on 0800 463 337 or via email at sponsorship@innz.org.nz.

Typically, sponsorship is a monthly payment of NZD 55 per child. If a monthly payment does not work for you, we are also able to take annual payments of the full amount of your sponsorship for 12 months (NZD 660). If you want to find out more about this option or to set up an annual payment, please get in touch.

If you miss a sponsorship payment, we will try and get in touch with you. If three payments are missed in a row and we have not heard from you, please be aware that we will consider your sponsorship ended and will find a new sponsor for your sponsored child.