My Sponsorship Experience
The Journey Begins
It began as a simple work project. But it turned into a life-changing experience for one woman, taking her thousands of miles from home and giving her confidence that one person really can make a big difference.
In 2007, while working as a senior recruiter for Red Ventures, an online marketing company in Charlotte, N.C., Susan Shanklin volunteered to help with an outreach project the company was sponsoring with the India Gospel League (IGL). The employees would sponsor children living in IGL-sponsored children's homes in India and write to them regularly throughout the school year.
Most of the children were dropped off by parents who couldn't afford to care for them throughout the school year. Others had lost one or both parents to death or abandonment and lived at the homes permanently. All of them came from extreme poverty.
Susan says she was excited to be part of a group of employees who were giving back by helping children in need. She looked forward to writing her sponsored child and to hearing about all the things her child was doing in school. But Susan soon learned how difficult it can be to communicate with someone through traditional mail when distance and language differences get in the way. Because the letters had to be delivered, translated, shared with the child, responded to and mailed back, Susan's communications with her child were infrequent.
"We only communicated twice a year, and it was very difficult to establish a deeper, meaningful relationship," she said.
By the time Susan received her second letter from the child, a year had passed and many children had left the homes to work in the fields. Most of the sponsors, including Susan, lost touch with their children.
New Year, New Technology
The missed opportunity to connect with the children was a disappointment for Susan and her co-workers. But instead of continuing the same inefficient program - or dropping it altogether - Red Ventures decided to build a technology system that would allow sponsors and children to communicate more frequently: they would use email.
Susan was elated, and eager to help. She and her fellow employees spent a year planning, building and testing the email platform. They named it eLinkMail and encouraged other employees to join them in sponsorship. The U.S. operation was running smoothly, but the system still needed to be implemented in India - and Red Ventures needed two volunteers for the trip.
Susan jumped at the chance. IGL had a new class of children who needed sponsors, and the child Susan had chosen - a little girl named Divya - lived in a home they would be visiting.
Susan was selected to go, and along with a co-worker, embarked on a 20-hour journey from the U.S. to Germany, and finally, to India. They arrived in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and drove through cities, towns and bumpy rural roads to the Sharon Children's Home in a region called Salem.
Meeting Divya
When they walked into the tiny schoolroom, Susan wasn't sure what to expect. But judging from the children's reactions, she could tell they had been expecting her. They greeted their American visitors with smiles and waves, and gathered into a group to meet Susan and her co-worker.
Then she met Divya. She learned the 6-year-old loves eating lemon rice and enjoys watering the plants in her classroom and that she always wears flowers in her hair. And that, Susan suddenly realized, had been the missing piece of her sponsorship experience. The small details that made Divya real and helped Susan understand this new person created a true connection in her mind between writing letters and helping a child grow into a happy, healthy adult.
Over the next few days, Susan learned about the children's lives - where they lived, where they ate, where they slept, where they studied and where they played. The environment within the home was very basic, and the children had very few personal belongings, but the smiles never left their faces. She wondered how children who have so little can be so happy.
But the lesson that really hit home was learning how much of an impact sponsorship really made in the lives of these children: that the small financial contributions from sponsors provide the shelter, food, clothing and education for these children; and how much the sponsor-child relationship contributed to the children's wonder about the world outside their village and about their own futures. She begin to understand that the children were happy because of the care and guidance they received at the home, and that the home was only able to provide this care because of sponsors like herself.
"It was very eye-opening, the whole experience of going to India and seeing the poverty that exists there," Susan said. "It became apparent how badly they needed our help just to survive on a day-to-day basis. It was also interesting to see how excited the kids got when their sponsors walked in."
The Journey Continues
After returning home to the U.S., Susan says she approached her role as sponsor with a new focus. The employees now use the eLinkMail system to communicate with their sponsored children every few weeks, instead of twice a year. For the employees, it has been a gratifying experience. For Susan, it brings her sponsorship journey full circle.
"She sends me pictures and drawings," she said. "I feel like I'm more a part of her day-to-day life and understand the things she's doing and gets excited about."
Susan says she and Divya now write every other month, and learn more about each other with each letter.
"This has been such an amazing experience," Susan said. "To go from knowing nothing about this little girl, to meeting her, to knowing how to encourage her and seeing what an impact that has in her life, it's just incredible."
Learn More
Learn more about sponsoring a child through the Lives Linked program, and how eLinkMail works.Or, sponsor a child today.
