Why Sponsor When It’s “Free”? (Feature Article)

Ignorant glances at the fridge front for over a decade at this one picture, never really caring about from where it came or whom it concerns. Until now. A rushing step forward but a pause followed by a step back to the picture. The picture of Josseline, our sponsor child.

I’ll have to make this privileged, spoiled admission that I’ve never really cared about her or wondered who she is and from where she belongs. I’ve of course known that my parents pay monthly sponsorship costs and that we help her, in one way or another, but I’ve never bothered to think -truly think- why this picture of a Guatemalan girl that is only a year older than me is on the front of a fridge in a home in Canada.

It wasn’t until a couple weeks back that I actually froze and stood to see the tints in her faint smile or the dark almonds of her eyes and realized the perfect topic for this article. A topic that I’ve always sought interest towards and been passionate about: education. I have always believed in the importance of one’s exposure to it but I have never realized that my passion is useless if not acted upon and embraced, embraced to spread it to those who actually yearn for it and will benefit from a couple dollars towards it, dollars that are otherwise wasted in North American society.

The country of Guatemala has a rich diversity in its landscape and fertile lands that provide blessed views and products that are shipped across the globe to densely populated countries that don’t have the privileged access to those kinds of exotic goods. With a vibrant culture and vast fields since the first chocolate inventors that aid the growing economy, the country of Guatemala is one of the rising nations in Latin America that is establishing its place on the international platform; however, there is one dominant factor that is often accredited with the inhibition of the growth the country aspires to attain: education.

Legally, the Guatemalan education system provides free education for children between the ages of 7 and 13, as the basic years of elementary education are supposedly supported by the government. An obligation associated with the absent cost is the compulsory attendance of the students in the classes. This attendance is determined primarily using the legal enrolment and parental consent given towards the beginning of each year the child goes to elementary school. Now, although the education is claimed to be of no cost, similar to most countries internationally, the catch that transforms this perceptively positive policy is that the education -meaning instruction- is paid for those particular years. This does not include the supplies fees, transportation fees, or uniform fees which tends to make numerous children the victim of this “free” education system. By no means after sharing this information do I intend to target the policies of the Guatemalan government; however, this brings a reality that multiple countries internationally, particularly third-world countries, face within their communities.

Although the reassurance of providing “free” education offers an incentive to families and children through the financial support, this support turns out to quite frequently not be adequate to fully support the education of the child. This leaves over 300, 000 children, that often reside in rural indigenous areas, to be considered “out-of-school” children according to UNESCO research. Furthermore, this leads to studies that over 2 million children, out of the population of 16.6 million people, do not attend school at all past the preliminary ages of 7 and 8, as the majority of the students that do not qualify as “out-of-school” children tend to be ones that enroll based on mandatory government policies and do not attend afterwards due to the lack of financial means to afford the branching costs of education.

This explains the disconnection between Guatemala’s education enrollment rate and the number of children that do not complete primary education, as the enrollment rate averages at 93% whereas approximately 13% of the population remains out of school. As mentioned before, the source of the absent children in classes tends to be the unaffordable costs related to supplies fees and uniforms, as the cost for school supplies ranges between $28 and $67 per student participating in primary school for a year. This cost does not include the uniform costs, which tend to be high due to the common presence of uniform schools in Latin American countries, or the cost for purchasing a backpack or transportation. Although these costs seem quite minor to normal first-world folks, they happen to be approximately 10% of the average monthly household income for low-income families that qualify as the lower-middle class in Guatemala. This section of the social class in this country is what more than 75% of the Guatemalan population is comprised of, thus directing towards the scale at which education remains a controversial and significant issue in Guatemala.

Since low-income families constitute a significant portion of the population in this nation, the resulting workers class and economy are also based on rural and agricultural sectors. The agricultural industry also includes the common trend of subsistence farming which is where the landlord provides a section of the fertile land for the pure use of personal farming to the tenant families to feed themselves. Although this trend definitely makes an effort towards reducing the social and food consumption issues regarding the contrasting divide between the wealthy and poor, this use of the land tends to limit the earnings of families to pay for other necessities. This being said, due to the dominance of the agricultural industry in Guatemalan economics and social structures, many children resort to working in hereditary fields instead of attending school classes as they do not have the financial means to support their increasing education.

This analysis of this particular situation in Guatemala brings me back to the central topic of this article, sponsorship education. In Guatemala, there are approximately 45 children per village, with an average country-wide population of a couple hundred, under international sponsorship. This allows them to receive the financial support to pursue the preliminary stages of their education to lay the foundation to their path to bring their family out of the cycle of poverty and the unfortunate consistency in inadequate resources. Nevertheless, this number of approximately 45 children per village can greatly be increased by the hundreds if fortunate individuals are willing to spare a few dollars. According to a study in 2016, people with annual incomes above the $100,000 mark donated 2.7% of their earnings to charities and NGOs whereas people earning less than $20,000 per year donated 5% of their earnings, leading up to how much more of a difference we all can still make, past the 45 count.

Although all these facts may seem quite typical as this article brings up the depressing story of the unfortunate children in third-world countries, as they used to for me, it is important to recognize how much of an impact making an effort to support these children makes, as it allows for the renewal of their lives, that have for past generations, been submerged in the vicious cycle of poverty and young labour. On an incredibly honest note, a mere thought regarding the lifestyle of these children can be a significant step in support of getting more of these kids learning as well, as opposed to working in fields, factories, or the streets, as that is what has brought me here to write this article.

Personally, despite being surrounded by evidence of support and simple attempts to make the life of one better, I never took a second to consider the actual impact of my parents’, along with hundreds of other people’s, efforts to boost the lifestyles and opportunities available to these children born into poverty. By simply taking a step back to think and pause, I myself have been able to genuinely research the impact, disparity, and opportunity revolving the children that do and don’t have access to support for their education, as I never realized the actual difference thought or bare action in regards to helping these children really made until I inquired about Josseline after choosing to write about this topic.

The inquiry and curiosity revealed that Josseline recently finished high school after 17 years of maintaining a long-distance connection with her, leading up to Josseline being on her way to pursuing post-secondary and our sponsorship transfer to another 4 or 5 year old in need.