The decision to receive a child inside the Sponsorship programme is taken after favorable enquiries of the social workers and agreement of the I/Charge. It is based on several criteria linked with the socio economical situation of the family: number of persons, nature of lodging, the income, the distance to our centers, etc. In fact a majority of families concerned with the Sponsorship programme are living at a few km of Volontariat center Sakthi Vihar.
Our ambition for the children is to bring them each of them, right from the date they are taken into our care, (and very often as early as crèche or nursery school), to their training for a job. Therefore, it is long-term action that also needs long-term support.
Among the various programmes of Volontariat, Parrainage is the most important: more than 1400 children are sponsored [few years ago, it was decided not to go above that number in order to insure the best service with the existing means]. They benefit from a wide range of services: school fees, extra curricular activities, beginners’ course in computing, health care, nutrition, apprenticeship etc.
After a study of the socio economical situation of some families, with the referent social workers, it may be decided to directly give a help to improve their living conditions: groceries, table/chairs, fan, mosquitonet, etc… When the family is too fat from our centers, Volontariat may pay for tuitions for the sponsored children; if the number living in such area becomes important, Volontariat may delocalize evening classes and teachers provided that a place is found.
Volontariat also helps in non-sponsored children (school stationery, uniforms etc.) in special cases. Together with crèche and nursery school applications, files submitted to the committees – with the “unavoidable” special cases, there are up to1800 children who benefit, in full or partly, from sponsorship programme.