More than a month ago, one of my friends asked me if I were interested to do some events photography – the World Vision roadshow in Penang. I said “No,” as the event was happening during CNY.
Then the road show got postponed. And I found out later that she wanted to go to the event as a volunteer for WV to take photos for them. With the change of date, she can’t make it anymore and they are short of 1 volunteer photographer.
Since it was for charity, I said “yes.” Besides my husband and I have talked about sponsoring a child for years but never did anything about it. So, it’s a good opportunity for me to learn more about it.
World Vision is on a mission to find sponsors for 3,000 children in 3 months, and are organizing roadshows around Malaysia to spread awareness and most importantly find sponsors for children in poor community in countries like South Africa, Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia and Myanmar.
They invited 2 beautiful lady celebrities to share their experience on child sponsorship. Actress Lee Sin Je and Miss Malaysia Deborah Priya Henry. Mix FM DJ Roshan and MyFM DJ Royce Tan were there to host the event. All four of them are currently WV sponsors.
Actress Lee Sin Je from the famous horror movie The Eye
Deborah answered a question that I had in mind. She said, “Many people said that charity begins at home. So if you want to do charity, why not do charity for the people in your own country. But if something devastating happened to my community and we are not able to help ourselves, I would hope that someone from another more privileged country would come and help me.”
The CEO of WV also shared his experience on meeting some of the WV sponsored children now are grown ups. One of them is a Miss Thailand and a doctor who has 3 children who are now doctors. Being a sponsored child of WV has changed them and their family’s lives. In fact, it had changed the lives of their next generation as well.
Why can’t we just donate money to the poor ourselves? Why do we want to donate money through them? What’s so special about the program?
Poverty is complex. It must be addressed in an integrated and comprehensive manner. WV does not give the entire sum of money to the child. If you give the money directly to the child, the parents may take the money away. . Direct monetary aid would make the child and his family dependant on receiving external aid.
To help the child, you must help the parents and the community as well. The parents & community need to have jobs so that the children have a chance at education. The money is pooled together with other sponsors’ to implement long-term, community-wide changes that help break the vicious cycle of poverty.
So after years of procrastination, did I sponsor a child during the event? Errr….No & Yes.
No, I still do not have a child sponsored in my name.
But Yes, because I am now paying for a child sponsored under my sons’ name – Bryan & Dylan.
I am now looking forward to mails and correspondences addressed to Bryan & Dylan. I can’t wait to share with them the impact that they are making on another child and her community’s life!
Learn more about child sponsorship or even better sponsor a child today here. And see more photos on their roadshow here.
Kwong Wah newspaper coverage of the event here.
