Frequently Asked Questions

Compassion collaborates with over 8.400 local churches in 27 countries worldwide: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Malawi and Myanmar.

Compassion works holistically.

We are:

• Children Focused. We focus our work from a holistic perspective on the child and its physical, mental, spiritual and financial needs.

• Church-based. We choose to collaborate with committed and faithful people in the local church who can teach, guide and be a mentor to the children. This is done in collaboration with parents and people in the local area.

• Jesus centered. We teach each child about the life-changing gospel, without reservation and in a way that is relevant to the child's age and culture.

We are determined to maintain a high level of integrity and competence to assist the children we help. We are committed to helping children, families and churches by creating relevant programs for children's development.

For the more than 70 years that Compassion has worked with development work, we have seen many methods used to break the cycle of poverty in children's lives. Social development is an important work that combats the circumstances of poverty and it is an important complement to our work. Our primary focus is on the development of the individual child. A development where each child can discover his unique value and potential. Many of these children grow up and affect their own community in a positive direction.

Compassion has guidelines for which children and families should receive help. The local church staff is trained to identify those children and families who are most in need of help.

No. We help the poorest and most vulnerable children regardless of faith and religion. The children who come to the center have varying ethnic and religious backgrounds. Parents or guardians are informed that Compassion is a Christian organization.

Compassion strives to reach as many families as possible. Usually only one child from each family is registered. In special cases, more children are registered in a family. Compassion's sponsorship program helps the whole family through, for example; health surveys, dietary counseling, supplies, parenting courses and other church activities.

A sponsorship lasts until the child has completed his or her education, which usually happens when the child is from 18 to 22 years depending on the country and the child's personal circumstances. It happens that sponsorship ends earlier. Often this is due to the family moving to another region where Compassion has no projects.

Your sponsor number consists of 8 digits. Your sponsor number is stated in your welcome letter. You will also find your sponsor number at the top left corner of the letters from your sponsored child. If you have trouble finding the number, get in touch with us and we will help you.

All communication between you and your sponsored child must only go through Compassion’s letter writing and not via social media platforms. This way, we can take responsibility for the correspondence and ensure a safe communication for the children. If you are contacted by your sponsored child outside Compassion’s correspondence process (for example via phone, email, Facebook, Twitter etc.), please do not reply. Let us know about the contact by calling +46 823 62 00 or emailing info@compassionfi.fi

If you decide to end your sponsorship, we will make every effort to find a new sponsor for the child as soon as possible. It is important that you contact the sponsorship service at the end of sponsorship.