In Zambia, poverty can shape nearly every part of a child’s life — from whether they have enough nutritious food to eat to whether they can stay in school and prepare for the future. The UN Child Poverty Report found that 70.6% of children in Zambia live in multidimensional poverty, meaning they experience deprivation across multiple essentials such as health, education, housing, sanitation or access to information.
Understaffed and underfunded, the Zambian education system contains large gaps, making it very difficult for young children who fall behind to catch up. And the detrimental health effects of malnutrition in Zambian children are widespread, often causing setbacks that can last a lifetime when related health issues are not addressed. Unemployment and underemployment among youth also create wide-ranging personal and societal deficits.
For many families, these challenges do not fade as children grow older. Gaps in school access and quality can make it difficult for students to keep pace, while malnutrition continues to affect children’s health and development.
And for older youth, the path forward is often uncertain: more than one in four Zambian youth (ages 15–24) are not in formal education, employment or vocational training*. Sponsorship helps interrupt that cycle by connecting children and youth with safe spaces, caring support and programs that help them build skills, confidence and long-term stability.
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*Sources: United Nations | International Labor Organization
Your monthly gift of $39 is an investment that gives your child access to safe spaces, a supportive team and a proven path to help them envision — and build — a future free from poverty. This essential support equips young people with access to the health, educational, social and emotional learning, life skills and employability resources needed to achieve long-term stability.
As a sponsor, you’ll see your impact firsthand through letters and photos from your child. You can even visit your child in Zambia!
Note: “Most at Risk” flag are children facing the least stable living circumstances and fewest resources.
Child sponsorship connects two people — a sponsor with a generous heart and a child living in poverty. From toddlerhood to young adulthood, our child and youth development program equips kids with crucial life and job skills to break the cycle of poverty. For good.
At Children International, we believe every child deserves the chance to thrive. And with support from caring individuals and philanthropic organizations, young people around the world are unlocking their potential. As they get older, they gain vital life skills and explore future career paths that help them pursue meaningful work and path out of poverty.
Your role as a sponsor and friend in your child’s life makes all this possible — and lets them know they are not alone in their fight for a better future.
*Tax-deductible
Your support provides your sponsored child with access to life-changing benefits through our innovative, holistic approach, such as medical and mental wellness care, empowerment initiatives, education programs, and more. The interventions you make possible are focused on giving children the support and tools they need to be healthy, stay in school, graduate with the skills needed to pursue meaningful work, and create lasting change in their community.
Children International is proud to support children, families and communities in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines and Zambia.
82% of Children International’s total operating expenses fund programs for children and youth. Most of your donation dollars go toward exactly what you intended — supporting children in poverty.
Child sponsorship is a voluntary, ongoing contribution you can cancel at any time — you’re in charge of how long you sponsor (and how many kids you sponsor).
You can change your monthly giving anytime by contacting our Care Team. Your child will continue receiving program benefits, and we’ll find another sponsor as soon as possible.
Children International is a global child and youth development organization working to end poverty for good. Headquartered in Kansas City, we serve 218,000+ children across 10 countries, creating lasting change that helps them reach their full potential.
Ending poverty begins with children. That’s why we invest in programs for children and youth throughout their first two decades of life — strengthening communities through local staff, education and health access, empowerment, career readiness, and partnerships that help families break the cycle of generational poverty.
If you recently attended a concert and received a child packet, you were provided with a code that you can use to begin sponsoring that child. Please click here to go to children.org/start and enter your code.
