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 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 reserve funding for emergency relief that would otherwise devastate our families if they were to pay out of pocket. Our emergency fund covers expenses including 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 fund, including assistance for families who are experiencing difficulties due to the Covid-19 crisis and the related shutdowns/loss of income. Additionally, we continue to partner 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?
When you give to the emergency 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 effects of the pandemic. And in 2021, we have committed to 97% of sponsored children receiving some sort of economic assistance each semester.

What happens if more money is raised than what is needed for this pandemic relief?
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 critical needs of our sponsored children and their families.

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. In fact, our field staff have a goal to contact at least 75% of families each quarter. 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. We also 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.

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. Although some community centers have reopened (some only for staff), 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?
We are closely monitoring the situation all our agencies and receive weekly updates. To learn more about what’s happening in each country where we work, visit this page by typing children.org/covid-info.

How will my sponsorship contributions be used during this crisis?
Despite the setbacks caused by the pandemic, our programs and services are ongoing, albeit in an adapted format. Instead of in-person programs and services we are now relying on technology to provide telehealth consultations, emotional well-being programming to support children and youth get through this challenging time, tutoring and computer courses, life skills sessions, and job-readiness training, among others. To every extent possible, we have adapted and continued our programs in a virtual mode.

In 2021, we will be focusing our programs and services to address the most critical needs of our families including access to health services, access to education and other learning opportunities, and emotional well-being trainings. Our youth employability programs, including job training and post-secondary scholarships, will also continue.

In Health Services, we are focused on making sure children and youth have access to health services when needed. We do this through telehealth services, nutrition rehabilitation, systems strengthening activities where we work with the local government to support their efforts, and also enhancing our partnerships and ability to fill critical gaps in access to health services.

In access to education and continued learning opportunities, we are supporting children and youth with the materials they need to attend classes remotely (school supplies, worksheets, internet access, etc.), providing them with educational support like tutoring and computer courses, and also extracurricular learning activities like life skills and preventive health programming.

In emotional well-being, we are training children, youth and caregivers on the ten facets of resilience so they may be able to bounce back from this crisis.

In addition to this, we are making a concerted effort to reach out to our families on a quarterly basis to see how they are doing and link them with available resources. Human connections have never mattered more.

How are the centers or agencies proposing to meet the health needs of children?
Children International doctors are working from home and providing health care 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. 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.

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. Please visit children.org/covid-info 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. We continue to look at adjustments to our processes so we can send updates to our sponsors.

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.