How Children International is responding
to the coronavirus

How can I help my child during this crisis?
You can give directly to your child with a donation of $50 or greater, or you can support our Emergency Community Fund, which will help our families during this difficult time. Donations are now being directed to provide food and living expenses and connect families with local resources to access critical support.

What is the Emergency Community Fund – and what it will cover?
Each year, we budget $250,000 to fund emergency relief that would otherwise devastate our families if they were to pay out of pocket. These situations include surgery (such as heart, eye, brain, etc.), chemotherapy, home repair or replacement, home furnishing replacement (due to disasters like floods and fires), and funeral expenses.

Children International will continue to support families who would otherwise need help through the Emergency Community Fund. We also plan to cover medical costs related to COVID-19 and are partnering with government agencies and other organizations to provide food and living expenses. We are also connecting families with local resources so they can access critical support.

How will I know where my money went? Will I get a report on the families I helped?
When you give to the Emergency Community Fund, your money will support families in urgent need. We cannot predict specific needs. However, we do know that virtually all our families are negatively affected by the coronavirus.

While we cannot report on the help extended to an individual family or child, we anticipate reporting on how many families received help and what type of help they received.

How much do you expect each family to need/receive?
Needs will vary by family, and while we know all of our families may end up needing relief, we do not expect every family to ask for assistance. We conservatively estimate 10% to 25% of our families will request assistance with an approximate value of $150 to offset some of the setback caused by the coronavirus.

What happens if more money is raised than what is needed for this pandemic relief?
A: Because we can’t predict how everyone will be affected, we can’t guarantee that all funds raised will be used specifically for coronavirus relief. We do guarantee, though, that all of the funds raised will be used for emergency community and family needs.

I would like to know if my child and family are doing okay. What can you tell me?
We do not have specific information about individual sponsored children. But our agency staff and volunteers are doing all they can to maintain contact with, and to check on the well-being of, all our sponsored children and their families. Our teams in the field are first and foremost concerned with doing all they can to keep children, and themselves, safe.

Will I find out if my sponsored child has the virus?
Due to privacy laws regarding personal health, we cannot provide this kind of information.

How can I help my child during this crisis?
You can give directly to your child with a donation of $50 or greater, or you can support our Emergency Community Fund, which will help our families during this time. Donations now are being directed to provide food and living expenses and connect families with local resources to access critical support.

May I give an extra monetary gift for my child?
Yes! Although gifts will be delayed, we will do our best to get it to your child’s family as soon as possible. Your gift of $50 or greater will help with the family’s most urgent needs, including cash donations directly to families in some cases.

Can I send a letter to my child?
Yes! A letter of encouragement and hope would be very uplifting for both your children and their family. Please be aware, however, that correspondence will be delayed during the crisis. You can learn more about how the pandemic is impacting our letter distribution process here. 

Stay-at-home orders and technological barriers are impacting delivery of letters, photos and family updates. We are exploring alternative ways to keep you in communication with your child, such as forwarding copies of letter by phone and asking families to send photos via text messaging.

Will children still write letters to sponsors?
Although it is possible some children will write letters, we do not anticipate or expect children to write until our community centers reopen, and we do not yet know when that will happen. Decisions surrounding re-openings will be made on a region-by-region basis.

What can you tell me about the situation in my child’s country?
There is a lot of information in the news, and we are closely monitoring the situation. To learn more about what’s happening in each country where we work, visit children.org/covid-info. You can also look for updates in the top banner of our children.org website.

How will my sponsorship contributions be used during this crisis?
Our Global Programs team is working with agency staff across the globe, coordinating action plans to continue offering benefits and services to our families. In some cases, assistance like tele-health services, virtual education, nutrition rehabilitation, job-readiness programs, and more, are ongoing. We are also forming partnerships with local vendors for distributions of food and medication.

Developing other partnerships with relief organizations and collaborating with government agencies are also effective ways we are helping in the communities where we operate.

Where technology makes it possible, our staff are in continuous communication with sponsored families and volunteers through phone calls and texts. Agencies are involved in a process to identify ways we can support the most vulnerable with funds that are not being used to maintain our community centers and traditional programming. We have already started providing food or cash support to families in some locations. We will have more specifics in the coming weeks.

With the closure of schools and higher educational institutions, will students receive HOPE scholarships and post-secondary school scholarships?
In most agencies, youth are still receiving HOPE scholarships. But it really depends on a country’s school calendar. For youth who have already started school, they received their HOPE scholarships and most likely used the funds to cover upfront fees. For students whose academic calendars are in between semesters or on a break – or for those whose schools are on standby – youth may need to use the scholarship to secure their registration. Many schools are also starting to provide online education so youth will have access to remote learning.

The need for educational assistance isn’t going away. In most cases, it is simply postponed — depending upon government and school policy. In fact, the need for education assistance will very likely increase, as the resources a family might have been able to put toward a child’s education will now be going to other essential needs like food due to reduced family income. Our agencies and program coordinators are working on ways we can supplement education through digital programs or over-the-phone tutoring.

Are there plans to pivot program funding to other emergency needs?
Plans are being developed that will allow us to pivot our resources toward the most critical needs of our children and their families during this crisis. Our leadership anticipates there will be some savings as we divert funding from one program to another. There will also be some savings accrued from lessened operating costs in community centers and related transportation funds.

We are determining how the savings might be used to support families. But we, along with the rest of the world, are in an unprecedented situation and are working hard to determine know best to serve our children, families and supporters. We are also actively seeking additional gifts for our Emergency Community Fund to support children and their families.

How are the centers or agencies proposing to meet the health needs of children?
Our community centers are closed because in many of the areas where we work, it’s against the law to leave home. Children International doctors are working from home and providing healthcare through tele-health services. Our doctors are answering health questions, prescribing medications and making referrals as needed. Children International will continue to provide pharmaceutical services and help pay for medicines and other health care needs.

Preventive health messaging and informative communication is a priority among our agencies. Through social media, text messaging and phone calls, we are working to communicate accurate information to sponsored families about how to prevent infection, properly wash hands and advise on local protocols if an individual suspects they’ve contracted COVID-19.

What processes and mechanisms are in place to alert the staff of any emergency needs?
We have strong networks with our committed volunteers, who remain connected to sponsored families and our in-country staff. Some agencies are participating in weekly check-ins with volunteers to assess the situation in our communities and to help gauge ways we can be most helpful. All communication is done electronically or over the phone.

Every week, our Programs team at headquarters receives updates, which include national and agency-specific information, from every agency. Staff in our agencies are also calling families to check in — especially those families with youth who are remotely participating in programs.

When will children be back in school?
This is up to the governments and municipalities where our children live. These decisions are being made with public health and safety being the top priority amid the pandemic. We are unsure when each country will allow children to go back to school, but please check children.org for the most up-to-date information.

How many families does CI work with?
Children International currently works with nearly 200,000 children and youth from 150,650 families in 10 different countries: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mexico, Philippines, United States and Zambia.

What changes should I expect to the sponsorship experience due to the coronavirus?
Your sponsorship experience will begin a little differently than it typically would.

Photos – as a sponsor, you receive a photo of your child each year, which you will still receive in your welcome kit. However, due to community centers being closed, a new photo of your child may be delayed, since photos are usually taken at the centers. Letters – as a sponsor, you can expect to receive a welcome letter, and then one to two letters from your child each year. But because we can’t collect letters safely at this time, you should expect significant delays of letters, including your welcome letter you would normally receive.

Your letters – we encourage sponsors to write to their children, but for now, there will be a delay in delivering letters to your sponsored child. Currently, the only letters we can process are ones written through MyCI. When you write a letter through MyCI, your letter will be transferred electronically to your child’s field office. If your child’s family has a phone, a staff member will either digitally forward it to your child’s family or call and read it to them. Note: If the family is not able to communicate digitally, we will try to find a way to deliver it and keep the lines of communication open whenever possible. We know how disappointing this is for our sponsors and children, and hope you won't let that disappointment overshadow how important sponsorship is for providing critical needs at this time.

Just remember — the support of sponsorship is so important right now. It’s a scary time for all of us, and finding a new friend can be such a source of hope, especially for a child in poverty.