Sponsorship Equals Opportunity

By Nina Woolley

This summer, I spent two months working as a SOTENI intern in Kenya. I am a pre-med biology and global health major at Duke University, and I was interested to participate in healthcare and development work in an impoverished country. One of my projects was to meet almost all of the sponsored children and writing reports to keep sponsors informed of their well-being. Even when writing private reflections in my journal, I had a difficult time condensing the stories of the students into one coherent entry. There are similarities among the children: most of them have been completely or partially orphaned due to HIV/AIDS, all of them face occasional food shortage and have inadequate resources, and few of them would not be in school if not for the generosity of their sponsors. However, despite these similarities in condition, each of their stories is filled with unique struggles, accomplishments, and dreams.

The first student I met in Mbakalo spoke softly and shyly, except for the moment she showed me her hearing aids. She then broke into the first smile I’d seen her wear, turning to indicate the hearing aids tucked securely in each ear. School had been an almost insurmountable challenge for this seventeen-year-old girl, who had ceased attending school prior to her sponsorship. Fortunately, thanks to the kindness of her sponsor and the concern of the SOTENI coordinator, her hearing impairment was diagnosed, and she was fitted for hearing aids that now allow her to hear her teachers and her peers. She is repeating seventh grade and performing well, confident that she will go on to complete secondary school and, eventually, university.

One story that particularly moved me was the story of a young man who excelled in secondary school and is entering his first year at the University of Nairobi to study nursing. When I met him, he told me that he could not talk about his current stage in life without telling me about his life before sponsorship. He felt trapped as a young orphan and, despite his love for learning, he would not have been able to afford to attend secondary school. He believes that he would have become a subsistence farmer. He is still awed that his sponsor gave him the opportunity to dream of a different future for himself and his family, and he has vowed to return the favor one day by sponsoring other children in his home community.

Based on these stories and others, I came to understand that poverty is not merely a lack of resources, but a lack of opportunity. The SOTENI Sponsorship Program tackles that problem head-on by creating opportunity for children to stay in school. Even the smaller successes are striking: the boy winning his first soccer match with his school team, the girl elected as Head Girl of the entire school, the young woman now equipped with the training and materials to begin a small sewing and tailoring business. Fortunately for the sponsored children, but unfortunately for the many others needing help, I noticed a real contrast between the sponsored children and other children in the community. I left wishing that this successful model could be extended to include even more orphans and vulnerable children.