Child Sponsorship -Empowerment International

In 1998, I was working in Central America as an equipment engineer with Intel. It bothered me to see the children working on the streets or in markets. I wanted to do something to change this. Not knowing where to begin, I first tried to volunteer with existing organizations but none of them were setup to work with part-time volunteers. My friend and I started to spend time with the street kids to understand their situation. We met two boys Michael and Jonathan who were 7 and 8 years old. Michael was fired from his job that day. He expressed his desire to go to school but that things were too difficult for his family for that. Immediately, I realized that helping removing the barriers to education for impoverished children, giving them the opportunity to escape extreme poverty through their own hard work, would be my mission.

Without knowing what I was doing, I announced on the spot that we had a program to help kids go to school that were otherwise not able to. We enrolled Michael and Jonathan as our first two participants. It has not stopped since then. Today, this chance meeting has turned into a real organization. Our team is amazing. Each day, they create new ideas to keep our kids in school. And now we can attest that our school retention rate is over 92% each year (for the past three years) in two Nicaraguan communities that used to be around 55%.

I recall someone discouraging me once in the beginning, telling me that *I* could not change the world. “Yes”, I said, “I know that. But I can perhaps help change the direction of a life and they can change lives.” Imagine if we all change a life or two in our own way by giving a little bit of ourselves and our resources?

By sponsoring a child, you give them the chance to live a different life than their parents and make better decisions than their parents may have. Our kids get to attend school and participate in all of our programs including our home visit program, tutoring, library, computer, English, medical, and more. One dollar a day can change a life when used wisely. Pretty amazing, don't you think?

Please sponsor a child today. We have over 200 children needing sponsors. Times are tough right now for everyone and yet it is exactly these times when your contribution will make the biggest difference.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead)

www.empowermentinternational.org