Thank you for supporting #GiveandReceive!

This week the blog is about you - everyone who has become a sponsor over our Give and Receive sponsorship campaign, those who were already a sponsor of one of our wonderful children or outreach families before the campaign began, and those who have supported our work over this year by reaching out, showing interest, volunteering, and spreading the world.

Reindeer Neema is one of the children who is fully sponsored

As the sponsorship drive (and 2014!) draw to a close, it is the perfect time to say a massive thank you for your ongoing support: for thinking and caring about the children of Nkoaranga and families in the surrounding community - together, you touch thousands of lives.

This year's sponsorship drive has been a huge success.  Many of you opened your family to a child without one, with twenty-six new monthly sponsorships. Together, we managed to get thirteen kids fully sponsored. That's an enormous accomplishment, and it will mean so much in terms of our ability to care for the kids in the coming year! Remember that every penny you give goes straight to the kids - sponsorship goes directly into a pool which covers the day to day costs of caring for all the children. 

And those costs, along with everything else, are changing a lot this year! We've agreed to take over full financial responsibility for the orphanage, and we're implementing a major, research based reform. This will improve care for the children and conditions for orphanage staff and volunteers by drastically reducing the caretaker ratio, redesigning the nutrition plan, improving pre-school education, splitting the children into family-style caretaker teams, and employing a child welfare director.  We will keep you updated on the progress every step of the way!

Miriam (pictured above)  is fully sponsored to attend school thanks to you!

Whatever stage your sponsored child is at, know that you are making a positive difference in their life:

• Sponsors of  a child at Nkoaranga Orphanage are helping to ensure that their child gets the attention, stimulation and care they need at this stage to allow them to grow into secure, confident and happy young children. 
• Sponsors of a child who lives at the pilot house and attend school are making it possible for their child to attend a school which focuses on holistic development, and have a safe and supportive home to return to in the evening and throughout their lives.
• Sponsors of a child on our outreach program are enabling families to stay together and making sure poverty is never a deciding reason for children to remain in the orphanage.

However you support our work, thank you for working together and with us to make all of these amazing goals possible!

We are so excited that the TST continue to stretch across the world. We have sponsors in Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the US.  

Thanks to Riz Kaiser for this awesome map!

Wherever you are, thank you for caring, and we hope you have had a great start to 2015!