How to pick kids Cancel Title is required

So as noted in my previous post, I am new to sponsoring and I currently sponsor one child. I would like to add another but - how do most people pick their kids? Longest waiting? Oldest? Youngest? "Poorest"/ most needy? The one I currently sponsor was mostly random but not completely (I tend to like children aged around 10 and I have recently become intrigued with the Philippines) but that was about it. How has everyone else picked "their" children??

I normally have no reason but my jessica from honduras was on the most needy list and her income is $33. My Amira from India was picked because I wanted a child that was very needy they had no bathroom. My little guy from Mexico was picked because he was waiting over 1200 days

I picked Getrude from the 'waiting the longest' list because she spoke a language I've never heard about before (Nyanja) and because she looked very kind. Some time after that I thought about adding someone else but the child I fell in love with because of their hilariously angry​/wry ​face got picked before I could get to them. Later I thought it might be very sad to be a sibling of a sponsored child and not to be sponsored yourself, so here we are, I've asked CI to add Getrude's sister Faides to the gang.

We are talking about a personal, very personal decision. The answers you read here will vary because attitudes and perception vary.  I am focused on children and youths, mostly youths, mostly those youths I think many sponsors will not choose.  That means I choose those in wheelchairs, those with photo-obvious challenges, those who are near adulthood, et cetera.  I start with clicking on Most Needy.  I narrow my search by going with 16+ but I recently chose to sponsor a five year-old.  Why? Because I imagined that few would choose her because her photo suggested a special needs situation. I am looking to help children and youths ( and their families ) in especially tough health or home circumstances.  If I read it is a single parent situation, the child/youth is "not in school," if I think I'm seeing ill health or permanently-challenged, I'm in.

I can't really say why I sponsored my kids.  Its usually just something in their faces that speak to me.  Some were tagged most needy, some were not.  My youngest one was making a face in her profile picture that my son sometimes makes and that endeared her to me.  I have a hard time pinning it down in most cases as its just a feeling I get when I see and read about the child and in my heart, I know I have to sponsor them.

Heya, k.

It's really up to you.  But if you want anecdotes, when we signed up I selected:
1. Filipinos (because Jun is native Filipino, and we wanted to be able to relate to the kids)
2. Boys (because we feel, correctly or incorrectly, that there is a bias toward wanting to help young girls so we wanted to be good male influences for boys)
3. Waiting the longest , irrespective of age or other criteria (like income/household size/et cet)

We originally chose John Denver and another child.  The second child did not show on our account for about a day after John Denver, and then we "switched" to Jun Ruel (Owel) because he has the same name as Jun, and Ruel is also Jun's sister's name. ​ We thought it was kismet, even if he was not waiting the longest.  I still feel bad about "switching" (and haven't seen that other child online since) but c'est la vie.

Later down the line we found that John Denver's oldest sister didn't have a sponsor, so we sponsored her for her final year.  She was 18, and is now graduated.  If we chose again (and we probably won't anytime soon) we would probably sponsor another teen.   Teens write great letters, you don't have to mentally plan for a longer-term commitment like you would with the younger kids, and teenage years are a critical time for their entry into adulthood!  Some sponsors here have some great stories of helping their teens and pushing their continued education, forays into trade school, and ​other ways I'm not really giving proper justice.

So that's my added food for thought. :)

If you want to read more comments from sponsors about how they decide which child to sponsor, there was a discussion about it at the end of last year: https://www.children.org/MySocialCenter/ActivityCenter/?relatedUserId=a359dafb-3d5e-416d-b1c5-e931a7277477#991a2b8d-7534-4cba-9268-00bd85dce6b8

Hi, I pick children for different reasons. Many times there is something in the child's face that draws me to them. They may remind me of someone in my family or a child that I've taught. I also like to choose children who are from single parent homes or who are living with grandparents. All of my CI children except for one,  are from single parent homes. I have also chosen siblings after visiting a family. Right now I was just given the third sibling in a family after the oldest child graduated.  

I mostly sponsor in The Philippines (cheap flights from the UK) but have kids in Colombia, DR and Mexico. For most of them I am their first sponsor and I usually choose single mother/relatives home , low income and long waiting or sharing a birthday.
Some of them were "impulse sponsorships" as they reminded me of somebody and one of my Colombian girls was the spitting image of my beloved Jordan (Ecuador) who left after 4 yrs of sponsorship. She was the same age as I became Jordan's sponsor (age 4) or there was something very special about that child/youth.
I usually choose from 9 years and above, but some were as young as 4 years old. Most of them are teenagers now  and have 4 girls aging out from any time now up to 2 1/2 years.
I think most of them are choosing the really young ones as they are really cute but as soon as the "cuteness" is gone they will be dropped. I prefer to sponsor the older kids, just my two cents here.

Hello, being a sponsor since 2006, I got many ways to pick children. My first pick with CI was a girl with my name and my husband' s birthday who only had her father, I also asked to sponsor her younger brother Mark when I learned their father was ill (he passed away just after) I still sponsor him, he is 18. My second child was from the info packet of CI. From my current group of children,  4 were chosen by CI to replace the ones that mooved or graduated. I have seen that CI also make good choices for me, those are Joan, Andrea, Ruth and Mayte..

Thanks everyone! I've been looking at some different countries etc and wish I could take on like ten kids! I have also been looking at older kids. I know this sounds dumb, but if you pick a kid who is almost 18, you only get to sponsor them for one year right? How much help could one do in a year??

I really like sponsoring older kids. All my older girls that I sponsor were 15 yrs old when I sponsored them

K - check our profile and stories about Mariz.  We sponsored her from 18 - 19 y/o and we think we made an impact!  Any sponsorship does in some way.  

When I started, I zeroed in on young kids (age 4 to 6) coz I happen to think development completes at a very young age. Therefore, strike while the iron is hot! It does mean I have the challenge of remaining consistent and being there thru age 19. In the beginning, moms wrote the letters. Now, I see them write their own letters and moving on to cursive. Definitely, its a slow process. My husband suggested to sponsor boys because that would be like 2 in 1. A responsible grownup boy is good news. ha-ha! I don't think there is a formula for this. I do have 2 girls now with one already in her teens. Once you commit, you run and hope that somehow, you can impact these kids positively.     

Your comment about wishing to sponsor maybe ten kids hit home.  I currently sponsor kids through 3 organizations, including CI, and I found that one way to keep my head on straight was to sponsor similarly-aged students with generally similar career aspirations.  Of course there are exceptions - and I have a special fondness for those, as it turns out.  

But if you really do think that you might sponsor a lot of kids, I would go into this by establishing something of a point of view.   I think, in total, I have about fifteen teens who happen to aspire to careers in healthcare. Even though they are all over the world and in different educational systems, they do have some common issues and obstacles that we all need to address.  

All that said, as it turns out my favorite CI student - if we are to admit these things - happens to be one I did not pick myself, but was just assigned without me providing input.  As it turned out she's an absolute pistol of a 10-year-old.  By all accounts she's a gifted student.  She wants to meet me and my family 'in person', as she put it, and from the outset informed me that she is indeed 'a very smart girl'.  The older CI students are diligently using EG's for tutors and tuitions, however, she has no qualms telling me that her idea of a good day is going to a movie and eating pizza.   I'm on notice.

So I guess I'm saying that while, from a practical standpoint, I've found that having a point of view for selection is helpful with more than a few kids, I would also say you never know - taking whoever you happen to get can sometimes be even better. 

Choosing which children to sponsor isn't something I have a formula for, and my priorities for such have changed over the 20-something years I've been a sponsor.

I didn't actually choose my first child specifically--I told CI I wanted a girl from Colombia, and they assigned me one. At the time, my priorities were (a) a girl, (b) who spoke Spanish, (c) from Colombia (where my cousin had lived for a couple of years).

Then I chose a girl in Ecuador, with the same priorities of a girl who spoke Spanish.

I'm not really sure WHAT changed my focus from Spanish-speaking girls to the Philippines, but change I did … and I stayed almost exclusively in the Philippines for a LONG time. At that point, my focus was on girls who had a LOT of siblings and only a mother at home.

Then Children International launched LiftOne (the predecessor for My Social Center), and I became aware of SO many facets of sponsorship that I had been ignorant of before. I still stayed primarily in the Philippines, but I branched out to include girls from ethnic minority groups in other countries (Mayan girls from Guatemala, girls whose listed languages were something other than Nyanja/Bemba in Zambia or Hindi/Bengali in India). 

Now, I'm still primarily in the Philippines (though my girls are beginning to age out of the program), but I've again shifted my focus back to the Americas because it's something tangible I can do to help combat the conditions that are causing so many people to flee their homes and try to come to the US.

So really, the ONLY common thread I've had over twenty years is that I sponsor girls. =) 

Reviving an old thread - I was wondering the same thing, what criteria everyone uses when selecting a child to sponsor.

I searched first by my own birthdate, since no matter how different we are, having the same birthday gives us something in common right from the first communication.  I know that sounds silly!  Then I narrowed it down by "most needy" and looked for a little girl living with a single parent.  I was raised by a single parent and was myself a single parent for a lot of years, so it meant a lot for me to be able to assist someone in those circumstances.  I took into consideration what country I might be able to travel to someday to visit, too.

When I started sponsoring almost 8 years ago, I chose 2 kids whose photos appealed to me, and whose families had very low income and fragile housing, because I knew I could help with home improvements.  And I chose young kids because I intend to be their forever sponsor.  I picked the Philippines because the kids would study English in school, never thinking I'd ever visit them.  (I've been twice!)  With most of the kids, there was just something about their faces that went immediately into my heart, and I couldn't get them out of my mind.  Danica's dimples won my heart immediately, even though I'll be 80 when she ages out of CI.   One girl's half-smile reminded me of my mother, and I sponsored her after my mother died.  Whatever criteria you use for selecting a child, I have a sense that fate will guide you to the child who desperately needs your support and love.    

I knew my first kid was going to be from Guatemala and female. I choose her because she was the youngest and there may not be as much pressure to get a job and support the family when she gets older. For my 2nd kid I wanted an older kid. I thought he was an only child, but it turned out that he has a little sister that he loves very much. 

For personal reasons I strongly prefer kids that are living with relatives rather than parents, I think that is usually a much harder situation financially and emotionally for child and replacement parents.

With you Jeffrey, with you! I choose children and youths who are red-flagged because they are in more difficult circumstances, meaning they are not living with both of their birth parents, rather they are living with one or none.  I also am focused on providing support to other-abled children and youths. Additionally, when I look at the photos of children and youths, I favor those who are not cute -- I know the rejection of not being cute : When I was a pre-teen and teen, I had to wear bifocals, I was covered in acne, I wore (teeth) braces and I was overweight.  My fellow students called me "Froggy." I always choose to sponsor those who are ignored because they are not adorable.

I agree with the beauty within. Looking at old photos, I was a quite beautiful teenager, but I was convinced I was ugly and I got rejected for being more poor than the children of my school.. and not having the cool stuff and clothing, not being able to go out with them.. ect.. I think beauty is a really subjective thing, looking at your children, I do find them adorable, ok some of them would not qualified as models but in my eyes for example Lontia has something very beautiful about her. It is a child I coukd have picked because her photo speaks to me..

I chose one of my sponsored children because she was not smiling. She looked a little angry, defiant, “I don’t care,” which made me think she might also have been sad. I also looked for who had been waiting the longest, not selected, for whatever reason. The non smiler gradually turned into a smiler, a few years along, looking healthy and happy, practically glowing.
Sometimes it has involved juggling and thinking carefully about how to fit in the financial support. Then I remember that I still have more available to me, including many choices and resources, that my sponsored children have. Of course, that’s aside from the attachment I have to them, even when we don’t exchange letters quite so often. I love getting the photos of them, to see how they have matured, and am so touched when they try to reassure me that they are ok during Covid.

Rachel, perhaps knowing the "rejection of not being cute" has led you to having an extraordinary heart.  And that alone has made your beautiful, inside and out.   

My children have all been chosen because of their faces.  Not because of whether or not they are traditionally "cute", but because of their facial expressions.  I chose kids that looked sad mostly.  Not intentionally.  That's just what ended up happening.  My very first, Rupa, was chosen for me by CI way back when it was just a mail-in thing.  When I found her sister, Minakshi, years and years later, I took her because she was Rupa's sister.  Jay was chosen because he looked sad in his photo.  Aliyah was chosen because she looked ornery.  Darlingthon looked afraid and shy.  Eddie was standing in a too-big tshirt barefoot in the mud looking sad.  Jeydel looked pleading with broken teeth.  Jessica looked defiant.  Shalini looked rebellious, and Sebastian I took over for a friend so she could watch him graduate.  Leidys, before the group went under, spoke to me because her clothes were way too small and she was pulling her shirt down to cover her stomach looking a little embarrassed.  Chrislay looked shy.  It's all about trying to see their personalities in their faces for me and when one jumps out at me, I have to help.  I connect quickly so I have to stay away from the list of waiting children.

My first sponsor child, Kyla, was the only one not smiling in the packets on the table. She was 3 in her photo, & I liked how fierce she looked. But that’s all there was for info- a photo and a name. It actually worked out quite well. Fate has her ways. When she graduated I wanted to sponsor in a country where I could go visit. I could never visit Kyla because she’s from the Philippines & I’m allergic to fish- I would die for sure! I have ties to India, and hope to visit there, so this time the search started in that region. I’m also not even remotely rich, so I wanted a place where I’d get a lot of bang for my buck: enter Kolkata! Having been a single mum I prefer children with the red flag, terribly challenged economically and possibly with a single mother. Also- intelligent and strong, (in some way) because it takes a LOT of grit to get out of poverty. And last, but not least, I try and find children with a kindness to them who have artistic souls: when you’re growing up in that situation, things become very practical, and the spirit can be lost, which is something of a tragedy.

I always pick kids from Guatemala, because I'm super in love with the country and its people. I tend to pick girls, because I feel girls have so many disadvantages in a culture that reveres boys more than girls. And I tend to pick older girls, 15-17, because really this is when they have the most needs financially. They are more in tune with the family's needs and so my EGs always get the child's input regarding what gets bought. At least, I hope it does! Pre-adolescents just kinda "go with the flow" but older kids start to think more about their own needs and futures.

I always pick based on the family situation, I feel that children without one of their parents might have a harder time, I also think the the parent who is still looking after them might have trouble making ends meet 

Hi there,
I have sponsored a number of children for about 15 years now using an excellent European-based charity and continue to do so.  This is my first time working with CI, where you in effect get to 'select' a specific child rather than be assigned one.  I have to confess, I did have mixed feelings about it because at first it felt a bit uncomfortable, almost like online shopping. However, the process definitely makes one feel more invested somehow and that could be a good thing for sponsor and child :)  If you know the country you'd like to support you can then find a child that has an interest that you think you can relate to.  The child I was able to sponsor liked drawing, and I like art, and that was enough for me. Of course, he's only 7 so I won't let myself get too invested in that connection as most 7 year olds like to draw!  Just remember whoever you are helping you can't go wrong

I chose my first sponsored child Daniel this year, 01/13/2021. He's from Africa (Zambia). I chose Daniel because he's about to be a teenager next year and that's a most critical time for children. I wanted someone that will face what most male men of color can and WILL endure growing up after the middle school years. I feel I can teach him a lot because I have many brothers so I know the knowledge I have will help aid him in the future.