Charitable giving can help support individuals and communities across the globe, from people in your own neighborhood to those living continents away. When you sponsor a village through an African charity like The Last Well, you can make a serious impact on the men, women, and children living there. Sponsorships typically take the form of large, one-time gifts or monthly commitments that provide a single community with access to resources that improve residents’ quality of life across multiple areas of their lives. Here are five of the biggest reasons to consider sponsoring a village with your charitable donations.
Education Matters
In many impoverished communities, access to education is scarce. Families are unable to pay for school fees and often feel that keeping their child home to help in the family trade will be more beneficial to their financial future. However, education can help give children the skills they need to obtain better paying jobs and support their families, who can in turn purchase resources to make their lives safer and easier. When you sponsor a village, you help begin this uplifting cycle of education and progress. Your gift can help children stay in school and obtain jobs that are satisfying and supportive for their families.
Meeting Basic Needs
Sponsoring a village can help provide communities with basic necessities, such as clean drinking water, consistent access to food, and medical support. Many families struggle to find these resources, often walking miles back and forth to clean water sources or living with easily cured medical conditions because they don’t have the money or transportation necessary to visit a doctor. Through sponsorship, you can bring these basic resources to a community and lift the burden of worry. Parents can then focus on other needs and receive the care and support they need, while children can grow up stronger thanks to their community’s improved resources.
Promoting Gender Equality
In some cultures, women and girls are not valued as much as the men and boys. While these cultural traditions are deeply rooted parts of society, they often result in limited access to education and freedom of choice for women and girls. Village sponsorship helps give everyone a fair chance, regardless of their gender. Each person receives equal access to the benefits provided by sponsorship, from education to medical care. This shows girls that their contributions to their communities’ matter and that they can determine their own futures. By empowering the disenfranchised, you give villages an even larger chance at progressing and growing in the future, as women and girls will become part of the solution instead of remaining silenced.
Increased Safety
People living in impoverished communities often experience higher levels of crime. Unfortunately, people in desperate situations may turn to violence to meet their needs, or they may become the victim of someone else’s crime due to their vulnerable status. Village sponsorship can help remove some of the reasons for turning to these drastic measures by providing people with basic daily requirements, such as access to clean food and water. A sponsorship can also help people avoid dangerous situations like walking for miles to find water or braving the dangers of a large city to find resources. Making it easier to find those resources close to home protects families and allows them to spend more time together in the comfort and security of their own community.
Emotional Support
In addition to the financial benefits of sponsoring a village, your commitment provides communities with a boost of emotional support. It can often feel as though the world has forgotten about people in need. When you make a monthly commitment to sponsor a village and support is growth, you also send a message. Your commitment shows that you care about the wellbeing of strangers, and that not everyone in the world has forgotten about impoverished communities in need of support. Knowing that they are cared for can help people continue working and moving forward during difficult times, giving them something that money alone simply can’t. The gift of emotional support can be the missing element that provides hope to communities just beginning their journey of sponsorship.
Sponsor a Village with The Last Well
Reach out to The Last Well for more information about how you can sponsor a village in Africa today. The Last Well is working to spread the Gospel and provide clean drinking water to the entire nation of Liberia by the end of 2020. To support them in this ambitious goal, you can select a monthly sponsorship that helps provide between one and 10 communities in Liberia with access to clean drinking water. This recurring sponsorship gift helps create sustainable and consistent access to clean water, supporting the health, safety, and educational goals of each community affected.
