The receiving side of sponsorship

---

(Ruta writing) You have all seen the appeals “For $35 a month, you can sponsor a child and change their life!” So what happens on the other side of the ocean, where the receiving children live? Tadas and I had the opportunity to see how these sponsorship children fare and distribute some of your kind donations to kids not formally included in the sponsorship program.

The Arat Kilo Child Care and Community Development Organization implements a sponsorship program run by the Canadian Christian Relief Fund. Their operations were impressive in their thoroughness and extent. The criteria for children to be considered for the program are that the families only earn about $15 a month in income. (This blows my mind how people can live on that here in Addis - we spend $30-40 a month JUST on bread.) The sponsored children get money for food and medicine and are closely monitored by the staff.
At the clinic, the sponsored kids get medical care for free, but their families do not. This organization came up with a great solution. They offer medical insurance to the families, which is unusual here in Ethiopia. They pay a fee every month and then get medical check ups and nutritional and other counseling from the clinic. The cost of the medical insurance for these poor families? $.30 a month.

In addition to the sponsoring program, this organization provides skills training for poor women. Here are pictures from the women taking the wool from the sheep, washing it, combing it to prepare for the stretching of it into yarn. They spin the yarn into thread. They wash it and string it onto wooden frames to make looms. Sitting by the looms, they hand weave or individually tie the threads onto the larger loom ropes to weave carpets. To see every step of the process and see how much manual labor is involved in combing the wool or hand tie-ing each little strand of yarn to make the plush of a carpet was fantastic.
This organization also has a flour making factory, again to teach skills to the poor. They offer training on basic business skills such as tracking expenses and income, saving regularly, and paying bills on time. They provide seed capital loans of $50 to help people start their own businesses, such as video rental stores or selling produce. (Can you imagine starting a business for $50 in the US or Europe?)

---

Photos

The finished product!
Our friend Kirsten, a VSO volunteer working for this organization, shows off the finished handwoven rug.