Mark with his sponsored child Amir and family - A child from SOS School Monrovia, Liberia
Several years ago for a family Christmas present I decided to sponsor a child through SOS Children. I chose SOS Children because I wanted to support a charity that allows a child to grow up in an environment that they are familiar with.
- “A memorable experience: visiting my sponsored child”
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Mark Mitchinson, child sponsor with SOS Children UK
Several years ago for a family Christmas present I decided to sponsor a child through SOS Children. I chose SOS Children because I wanted to support a charity that allows a child to grow up in an environment that they are familiar with.
Amir, from India, became my sponsored child. His mother had died in Kashmir and his father was unable to care for him, his two brothers and his sister, so they all moved into SOS Children’s Village Jammu.
Last year, my partner and I were lucky enough to visit India and make a trip to Jammu in Northern India where the Village is situated. We were made to feel at home straight away by the Village Secretary.
After a compulsory cup of tea, we were taken to meet Amir, his SOS mother and his family. We were greeted by a shy little boy full of excitement. It is an experience I will never forget. The family had prepared a very special afternoon tea (fizzy drink and potato chips) for both Hayley and I. So special was the morning tea they did not want to have any themselves but encouraged us to keep eating. Amir’s sister also prepared a traditional Indian rice dessert for us, which was very tasty.
The house was very clean and well run by the SOS mother, who the children adored. Amir was able to stay with both of his brothers and his sister in the same house, another reason why I support SOS Children. It was also very special to see that even though that the Jammu area is majority Hindi, and that 16 out of 17 of the Village’s houses were Hindi, they still had a Muslim house for the children who had been brought up with this religion.
After eating, we were shown around the very well-kept school grounds, next to the school building. Amir showed us his classroom where he, like I was at school, is often distracted. We gave the kids a few small gifts that will help them with their learning and increase their chances at being the next Sachin Tendulkar. The smiles on their faces make us regret that we hadn’t done more.
I look forward to following Amir’s progress throughout the years and hope to be able to help out where needed. I would recommend SOS Children to anyone else wanting to sponsor a child. If you ever have the opportunity to visit your sponsored child, I would thoroughly recommend the memorable experience.
- "How should the children of the poor be educated?”
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Hannah Edwards, Press and External Communications Officer, SOS Children UK
This month brings fresh news of an “education crisis” in South Africa, where fewer than half of all pupils pass their secondary school-leaving certificate and 80% of state schools have been labelled as ‘failing’ by the government.
South African families are unsurprisingly losing faith in the system and sending their children to private schools. Many of those switching are black families on modest incomes, who scrimp to afford the annual fees (around 1,000 dollars) for low-cost private schools.
The BBC’s reporter, Karen Allen, recently visited a small private school set up in a deprived area of Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. The head of the school says parents simply want “consistency and quality” for their children. The school has a positive ethos and focuses on providing children with the learning facilities they need. Pass rates of 83-100% for the leaving certificate have been achieved over the last few years.
As the state sector struggles with allegations of absentee teachers, mismanagement and corruption, some social commentators are asking if it might be the private sector which offers the best hope to children in deprived areas. In his 2009 book ‘The Beautiful Tree – A personal journey into how the world’s poorest people are educating themselves’, James Tooley explores how small private schools, often run by highly-motivated and caring individuals, frequently offer poor children the chance of a better education in countries where the state sector is failing.
Tooley himself was a reluctant convert, believing passionately in universal and free education for all. But after spending his early life teaching in Zimbabwe and then travelling widely to study schools, he discovered that the poor didn’t see themselves as ‘helpless’ when it came to matters of education. And no matter how squalid their living conditions, many families happily gave all they could afford for their children to be taught by inspirational and devoted educationalists running low-cost private establishments. Tooley found that often, the motivation for local people to start up private schools in deprived areas was not one of profit – though heads of schools did see themselves as ‘businessmen’ – but to serve the poor and improve the lives of children in their communities.
The schools run by SOS Children run along ‘private’ lines, charging modest fees. Where families in the local community are not in a position to afford the costs, scholarships are awarded. Indeed, Tooley found that many private schools in poor areas offered such concessions, seeing their role as one of ‘social welfare’ as well as education.
Of course, if managed properly, the state sector should offer schools of equal quality and teachers with equal commitment. But where this is not happening, perhaps there is a place for privately-operated schools. As one Indian in Hyderabad memorably expressed, after explaining how school inspectors only visited state schools to “be made happy” with bribes, “sometimes, government is the obstacle to the people”. This certainly seems to be the view of many South African families and they’re voting with their children’s feet.
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