Changing Lives: Report Launch

As an evolving girls’ rights organisation with an 80 year history of working with children we see the value of child sponsorship every day and now we’ve captured the data that proves it, in our latest report Changing Lives.

We currently engage with 1.4 million sponsored children in 48 countries through sponsorship activities, communications and programs

Each year we interview every single one of these sponsored children and their families and since 2006, these interviews have been recorded – all 12 million of them.

We commissioned RMIT University to analyse this data and the resulting report, Changing Lives, looks at the information collected over this period to assess the real impact of Plan International’s sponsorship programs on children’s lives.

The findings? Sponsorship works! And it really is changing the lives of millions of children.

Read the report

The report found:

• Girls and boys are more likely to go to school in communities where Plan International runs sponsorship programs.
• School attendance amongst girls and boys rises every year that Plan International works in a community.
• Sponsored children who receive letters tell us they are healthier, happier and more confident.
• In conflict situations, sponsorship helps to keep children in school..
• The earlier sponsorship starts, the longer a child will stay in school.
• Sponsored girls and boys are more likely to have their birth registered.
• Birth registration helps protect girls from child marriage and trafficking and gives children better access to education, health services and legal protection.
• Sponsorship helps to increase school attendance by encouraging birth registration.
• Sponsorship improves communities’ access to water and the longer Plan International works in a community, the better the access to water and sanitation.

With no religious affiliations and designed to benefit all children in a community, whether they have a sponsor or not, Plan International’s sponsorship programs aim to improve the well-being of all children, creating change that benefits not just one child, but the whole community.

If you’d like to find out more about how your support can create lasting change in children’s lives, head to our child sponsorship page.