WHEN ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN GET SUPPORT, THEY ARE READY TO GO

“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom”

However,  the biggest contributor to global poverty is lack of access to education. The following facts about education are a snapshot of the problem and indicate how difficult it is for children in poverty to overcome the obstacles they face and escape their circumstances.

In order to effectively fight poverty, the lack of education for children in the developing world, especially for girls, must be addressed.

• The global gender gap in education is concentrated among the poor. Poor women aged 15 to 30, on average, have a year less schooling than poor men of the same age group.
• 757 million adults still lack basic reading and writing skills. Two-thirds (63 percent) are women

Through Birds of a Feather program we offer children in poverty/vulnerable the opportunity to go to school and/or stay in school. We give them the chance to change the facts about education and change their future. When asked which component of our program is most beneficial to them, 100% of formerly sponsored children will say “educational support.”

• Nine percent of children of primary school age (typically 6 to 11 years) continue to be denied the right to education.
• Of the 59 million children of primary school age who were out of school in 2013, 30 million lived in sub-Saharan Africa and 10 million in South and West Asia.
• More than half (53 percent) of the primary school-age children out of school are girls.
• For the school year ending in 2013, 124 million children and young adolescents, roughly between the ages of 6 and 15 years, have either never started school or have dropped out.
• One in six children in low and middle income countries will not complete primary school in 2015.
• A sample of 31 low- and lower-middle-income African and South Asian countries, showed that, on average, an urban child is almost five times more likely to complete secondary education than a rural child. And a boy is 1.55 times more likely than a girl to complete secondary school.

Independent research found that Birds of a Feather sponsored children stay in school longer than their non-sponsored peers: 1 to 1.5 years longer, are 20 to 30 percent more likely to finish secondary education and are 30 to 60 percent more likely to graduate college than those who were not enrolled in the child sponsorship program.

• In 2012, the global adult literacy rate was 85 percent, compared to 91 percent for youth aged 15 to 24.
• Sub-Saharan African and South and West Asia, youth literacy rates are 70 percent and 84 percent respectively.
• 25 percent of all illiterate adults live in sub-Saharan Africa.
• A study using data from 219 countries from 1970 to 2009 found that, for every one additional year of education for women of reproductive age, child mortality decreased by 9.5 percent.

When you sponsor a child, your sponsorship provides school fees, uniforms, books and supplies — without which children can’t attend school. Your money also provides basic necessities for the family so that child labor isn’t forced upon the child.

                                      CHILDREN BECOME VERY HAPPY AFTER GETTING HOPE OF A CHANGED LIFE