Many answers can be found right here in our frequently asked questions.
Please visit our child sponsorship page and find a child you'd like to sponsor. You can sponsor a girl or sponsor a child from a specific country; you can even sponsor a child with the same birthday as you. If you'd like help sponsoring a child, please get in touch with our friendly team at 01932 836490 or by email at info@compassionuk.org. Sponsor a child today and give them life-changing support, including food, education and health-checks. Child sponsorship with Compassion is an opportunity to come alongside a local church, and together, bring hope and lasting change to a child living in poverty.
Child sponsorship with Compassion is an opportunity to come alongside a local church, and together, bring hope and lasting change to a child in poverty. Independent research shows that this approach works!
Education: Formal education or vocational training and training on subjects like hygiene, computing and music. Alongside educational support, including school uniforms and resources or advocating for identification papers and other documents that help children access local schooling.
Healthcare: Each child and youth receives a yearly medical check-up. Additionally, they can access recommended immunisations to support their fight against diseases and help them stay healthy. Follow-up medical care and interventions will be provided as necessary.
Nutritional support: Malnutrition is one of the world’s leading causes of child deaths and hinders brain and physical development. Regular monitoring helps identify and address malnutrition before it critically impacts development.
Community: through pastors, tutors, church staff and volunteers, children we work with are cared for and invested in by members of their own communities who encourage them to discover their unique gifts, passions and abilities.
Through the local church, children and youth have peers to learn alongside and opportunities to form healthy friendships. Sponsors play an important role through prayers and messages of encouragement. Compassion also addresses the wider context of the child by providing opportunities for the caregivers, families and communities of those we serve.
Safety: child protection is at the heart of our work. Child development projects are safe places to learn and play. Adults who engage with children are trained and committed to protecting children. Children and youth are taught about how to safeguard and advocate for themselves. Compassion commits to high-quality systems and processes for handling reports of abuse.
Support during disasters and crises: Compassion’s local church partners are often the first to respond in the community. When a crisis strikes – like widespread natural disasters, civil unrest and economic instability facing the world today – vulnerable children and families are the hardest hit. Compassion comes alongside so children and youth can access emergency aid and necessities like clean water, shelter, clothing and trauma counselling.
What’s more, by empowering and educating one child, you bring change to a family. Sponsored children share what they learn with their siblings and parents. We regularly hear stories of children teaching their parents and siblings to read or how to practice good hygiene in the home. Moreover, they receive the love, care and support of a local church community, which can make a transformative difference for the whole family.
If you have further questions, please get in touch with our friendly team at 01932 836490 or by email at info@compassionuk.org.
Our church partners reach the children in the greatest need.
Staff who know their communities inside out identify the children most in need of your sponsorship support. Children are given help regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs.
We start searching for a sponsor, like you.
Once registered in the Compassion Programme, we look for one sponsor to support each child.
One Compassion sponsor starts to empower one child.
When you start sponsoring, you sponsor a child directly! Your donations will immediately begin to support the child you sponsor.
Children meet at their local Compassion project
We have thousands of local church partners tailoring our holistic child development model to the contextualised needs of the children they serve — the children in their communities.
When you sponsor a child with us, the beneficiary of your support is the specific child you sponsor. The family may receive additional or indirect benefits, but we focus on one child.
The child you sponsor will attend a Compassion Project at their local church. There, they'll;
Compassion is a leading Christian charity and is considered one of the best child sponsorship organisations.
We have experience!
Founded in 1952, Compassion is a Christian child development charity releasing children from poverty, in Jesus’ name.
We work across the globe exclusively through local church-driven projects
Working in 29 countries, we partner with more than 8,600 local churches within communities experiencing poverty. Our heart is to give children and young people living in extreme need the opportunity to thrive and reach their God-given potential both now and into the future.
We’re Christ-centred
We're motivated by Jesus’ call to love our neighbour.
We're child-focused
We're helping those left most vulnerable to the effects of poverty.
Our programmes care for every part of a child's life
Compassion’s child development programmes are holistic, giving children support in every core area of their lives.
Because we work in partnership with local churches who know their communities inside out, our programmes are tailored to a child’s age, gender, health, culture and family situation. Independent research shows they are highly effective; now, more than 2.3 million children are being released from poverty.
Click here to find out what graduates say.
Click here to find out what sponsors say.
If you have further questions, please get in touch with our friendly team at 01932 836490 or by email at info@compassionuk.org.
Gifts are a great opportunity to show the child you sponsor that you care for them. We don’t want to overwhelm the children we serve and their families, and we want to be mindful of the local context. We suggest the following:
To enable you to easily connect with the child you sponsor through writing letters and looking through their profile, photos and past correspondence, you can log in to your individual myCompassion account online or in the Compassion UK App. You’ll need the email you registered with, so if in doubt, we’re more than happy to create an account for you or let you know the email we have on record. Please do call our friendly team at 01932 836490 or email info@compassionuk.com if you need support. Alternatively, if you know your registered email address, you can create a username and login yourself on our website. Step-by-step
We have experience! Compassion has been empowering children to overcome poverty since 1952. It works! Independent research shows that Compassion-sponsored children stay in school longer and are more likely to grow up to be employed and leaders in their churches and communities. Moreover, more than 500 Compassion graduates were surveyed about their experience. You can read more here. We believe it’s an injustice that worldwide more than 333 million children live in extreme poverty. And as Christians, we have a biblical call to care for the poor and love our neighbour. That’s why Compassion works in partnership with local churches across 29 countries to release children from poverty, in Jesus’ name. We’re a leading authority in holistic child development, giving children support in every core area of their lives. Our programmes support children's physical and mental wellbeing. They cultivate character and give a child or young person the skills, access to education and motivation they need to be self-sufficient in the future. The care is given in the context of a local church community where children and their families can experience practical expressions of God’s love. We care for children even before they’ve been born, all the way through to young adulthood.
With more than 2.3 million children registered in Compassion projects around the world, it takes time for our project staff to select appropriate presents for every child depending on their individual needs. Writing your greeting as early as possible gives us enough time to process, translate and arrange the delivery of all our sponsors’ messages.
Compassion child sponsorship is a powerful and lasting way to tackle poverty. For £32 a month, you can empower a child to overcome the complex obstacles poverty brings. Your sponsorship ensures a child can access medical check-ups, education, food, clothing, and social and emotional care through the local church. We know this is a significant commitment, but it's the reality of what it costs to provide children with the best care and the resources they need to break free from every aspect of poverty. You can partner with a local church and empower a child with the life-changing message of the Gospel. You can empower a child to see transformation in their family, community and country. When you sponsor a child, you become part of a multiplying movement of change and transformation - in the life of a child and in the lives of those around them. Join the movement to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. If you have further questions, please get in touch with our friendly team at 01932 836490 or by email at info@compassionuk.org.
Compassion feels specifically called to serve children in poverty around the world. We believe this is the mandate God has given us and that it is the best stewardship to focus our time and efforts on the 29 countries where we work. We do, however, acknowledge the need of families here in the UK and we wholeheartedly support and pray for other Christian charities that are focused on helping them during the cost-of-living crisis. You can find out more by reading our blog here.
Our friendly team are ready to help with any questions you might have.
01932 836490 - Lines are open from 10am-5pm Monday to Friday.
Please leave a voicemail if you call outside these hours and we’ll get in touch as soon as we can.
Compassion UK Christian Child Development, registered charity in England and Wales (1077216) and Scotland (SC045059). A company limited by guarantee, Registered in England and Wales company number 03719092. Registered address: Compassion House, Barley Way, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 2UT.