Is it a good idea to 'sponsor' children in the third world?

Ja'mie (from the ABC comedy series We Can Be Hereos) and her 'Global Vision' promotional poster.

A conversation with some people from my French class had me recently contemplating signing up to one of those sponsor-a-child-in-a-developing-country programs. Quite a few of the people in my class said have sponsored a child and said they found it very rewarding.

However, in doing some research, I stumbled on a very interesting article that has made me think twice.

ONE MILLION 'foster parents' in the West are now sponsoring children in the Third World - each giving around $20 a month - in what has become an extraordinary international exchange.

This is a very 'personal' form of giving - and from the outset the needs of the individual donor are taken into account. Advertisements for Save the Children in the US offer the prospective parent a long series of multiple choices. You check one box to choose the sex of your child and then another for their location or race. After this, as with most of the organisations, you get a child 'on approval' - with a photograph and a case history. If you accept, the process starts; you send your monthly aid and get letters from the child of your choice.

The appeal of all this is almost irresistible, and it is hardly surprising that this is one of the fastest-growing sources of money for voluntary agencies. The organisations concerned - like Foster Parents Plan and World Vision - are expanding rapidly. And even the relatively new British agency, Action Aid, now has 60,000 children on its books.

There can be no doubt about the good intentions of most of the donors. They wish to help identifiable individuals and hope to learn more about the places where their money is being used. It is a more attractive proposition than working through a conventional aid agency, which might fund a thousand projects from a central fund and appears much more impersonal.

Offering sponsorship is certainly an easier way to raise money. But is it a good way to spend it? (Continued...)

The article goes on to argue that, compared to other modes of charitable donation, child sponsorship has several hidden disadvantages for those you're trying to help:

- It's an inefficient use of your money (much of your donation is spent on taking photos of the child, monitoring the family's progress, translating the child's letters, etc).

- It causes divisions, setting the child apart from other children in the family, village, and school that don't also have a sponsor.

- Makes the child and his/her family acutely aware of their poverty relative to the sponsor's lavish first world life style.

- Maintains the child and his/her family's consciousness of aid and dependence.

Hmmmm. I had never considered these things before. It's not the kind of thing that is readily apparent to prospective donors. Of course, the article is from 1982, so maybe things have changed since then. But I haven't been able to find much info to the contrary.

Anyway, I feel obligated now to find something else to donate the equivalent amount to. Something that gets me 'bang for my buck'. But how do you calculate 'bang'? How do you work out which charity squeezes the most goodness out of each of your charity dollars?