Better than nothing? A review and critique of child sponsorship

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review and synthesize research focused on child sponsorship (CS) and, in doing so, to present a critique grounded in conceptualizations of justice, solidarity, ethical relationships, and international development education. As discussed in this paper, a review of the literature yields eight motivations for becoming involved in child sponsorship: Personal connection; altruism; guilt; small win; part of something bigger; distrust of government; not faceless; advancing development. Following the research synthesis and discussion of these motivations, a critique is constructed by viewing these motivations through three theoretical lenses: conceptualizations of the good citizen, the complex audience member and, finally, a pedagogical tool and framework referred to as HEADS UP. The paper concludes with questions centering on power, poverty, responsibility, complicity, justice and peace, and, ultimately, provides a response to the question of "is it better than nothing?" The argument put forth in this paper is that, in its noted absence of a more critical examination of the root causes of poverty and global injustices, child sponsorship is, in fact, not better than nothing.

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Research, Society and Development, v. 9, n.8, e26985574, 2020
(CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i8.5574
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Melhor que nada? uma revisão e crítica do patrocínio infantil
Better than nothing? a review and critique of child sponsorship
¿Mejor que nada? una revisión y crítica del apadrinamiento de niños
Recebido: 12/06/2020 | Revisado: 12/06/2020 | Aceito: 17/06/2020 | Publicado: 20/06/2020
Kathleen T. Nolan
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6587-6757
Faculty of Education, University of Regina, SK, Canada
E-mail: kathy.nolan@uregina.ca
Resumo
O objetivo deste artigo é revisar e sintetizar pesquisas focadas no patrocínio infantil (CS) e, ao
fazê-lo, apresentar uma crítica fundamentada em conceituações de justiça, solidariedade,
relações éticas e educação para o desenvolvimento internacional. Conforme discutido neste
artigo, uma revisão da literatura fornece oito motivações para se envolver no patrocínio de
crianças: Conexão pessoal; altruísmo; culpa; pequena vitória; parte de algo maior;
desconfiança do governo; não sem rosto; avanço do desenvolvimento. Após a síntese da
pesquisa e a discussão dessas motivações, constrói-se uma crítica visualizando essas
motivações por meio de três lentes teóricas: conceituações do bom cidadão, do complexo
público-alvo e, finalmente, de uma ferramenta e estrutura pedagógica denominada HEADS
UP. O artigo termina com perguntas centradas no poder, pobreza, responsabilidade,
cumplicidade, justiça e paz e, em última análise, fornece uma resposta à pergunta "é melhor
que nada?" O argumento apresentado neste artigo é que, em sua notável ausência de um
exame mais crítico das causas profundas da pobreza e das injustiças globais, o patrocínio
infantil não é, de fato, melhor do que nada.
Palavras-chave: Patrocínio infantil; Crítica; Educação para o desenvolvimento; Cidadão
global; HEADS UP; Justiça; Revisão da literatura.
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to review and synthesize research focused on child sponsorship (CS)
and, in doing so, to present a critique grounded in conceptualizations of justice, solidarity,
ethical relationships, and international development education. As discussed in this paper, a
review of the literature yields eight motivations for becoming involved in child sponsorship:

Research, Society and Development, v. 9, n.8, e26985574, 2020
(CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i8.5574
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Personal connection; altruism; guilt; small win; part of something bigger; distrust of
government; not faceless; advancing development. Following the research synthesis and
discussion of these motivations, a critique is constructed by viewing these motivations
through three theoretical lenses: conceptualizations of the good citizen, the complex audience
member and, finally, a pedagogical tool and framework referred to as HEADS UP. The paper
concludes with questions centring on power, poverty, responsibility, complicity, justice and
peace, and, ultimately, provides a response to the question of “is it better than nothing?” The
argument put forth in this paper is that, in its noted absence of a more critical examination of
the root causes of poverty and global injustices, child sponsorship is, in fact, not better than
nothing.
Keywords: Child sponsorship; Critique; Development education; Global citizen; HEADS
UP; Justice; Literature review.
Resumen
El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar y sintetizar la investigación centrada en el
apadrinamiento de niños (CS) y, al hacerlo, presentar una crítica basada en
conceptualizaciones de justicia, solidaridad, relaciones éticas y educación internacional para
el desarrollo. Como se discutió en este documento, una revisión de la literatura arroja ocho
motivaciones para involucrarse en el apadrinamiento de niños: conexión personal; altruismo;
culpa; pequeña victoria; parte de algo más grande; desconfianza del gobierno; no sin rostro;
avanzando el desarrollo. Siguiendo la síntesis de investigación y la discusión de estas
motivaciones, se construye una crítica al ver estas motivaciones a través de tres lentes
teóricos: conceptualizaciones del buen ciudadano, el miembro complejo de la audiencia y,
finalmente, una herramienta pedagógica y un marco denominado HEADS UP. El documento
concluye con preguntas centradas en el poder, la pobreza, la responsabilidad, la complicidad,
la justicia y la paz, y, en última instancia, proporciona una respuesta a la pregunta de "¿es
mejor que nada?" El argumento presentado en este documento es que, en su notoria ausencia
de un examen más crítico de las causas profundas de la pobreza y las injusticias globales, el
apadrinamiento de niños no es, de hecho, mejor que nada.
Palabras clave: Apadrinamiento de niños; Crítica; Educación para el desarrollo; Ciudadano
del mundo; HEADS UP; Justicia; Revisión de literatura.

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1. Introduction
In 1985, the New Internationalist wrote that “[h]owever well-intentioned [child
sponsorship] may be, the kernel is the creation of a paternalistic relationship which is
unnecessary and potentially harmful” (NI, 1985, p. 150). According to that NI issue, child
sponsorship “plays on Western individualism and the donor’s desire to visualise and obtain
feedback from the recipient of the aid” (p. 149). Now, thirty-five years later, the number of
sponsored children is “estimated to be between 8 to 12 million children across the world”
(Noh, 2019, p. 1420) with more than CAD 2 billion raised in Canada alone. In 2018, one child
sponsorship organization, World Vision Canada, reported sponsoring 415,113 children during
the year, at $39 per month each (Charity Intelligence Canada, 2020). What is clear from these
few statistics is that child sponsorship has become a global fundraising machine. Yet, as I
argue here, its kernel remains in tact: child sponsorship is an example of a charitable act
which “target[s] symptoms and short-term fixes, not root causes, thus promoting band-aid
solutions to complex systemic problems” (Saskatchewan Council for International
Cooperation (SCIC), 2017, p. 3). In this paper, my aim is to review and synthesize research
literature focused on child sponsorship; to view that literature through key theoretical lenses;
and to establish and articulate a clear and specific position on child sponsorship. That is, in
this paper, I make an argument against child sponsorship (CS).
As I reviewed literature and shared with family, friends, and acquaintances the fact
that I was engaged in writing this critique, I was frequently confronted with one question: “...
but isn’t it better than nothing?” In other words, the complex issues and motivations for
becoming involved in CS were being reduced to an implicit binary-based question of “should
I sponsor a child or do nothing?” The argument put forth in this paper is that, in its noted
absence of a more critical examination of the root causes of poverty and global injustices,
child sponsorship is, in fact, not better than nothing.
The paper begins by presenting working definitions and assumptions about CS,
including how/if this action aligns with the bigger picture of justice, global citizenship, and
development education. Following this, the results of the review are presented in the form of a
collection of reasons or motivations for becoming involved in CS, as teased out of the
research literature. These reasons or motivations are then viewed through key theoretical
lenses, always with an eye focused on whether these motivations, and those non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting CS, reflect the tenets of higher levels of

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justice, solidarity, and ethical relationships. In other words, I focus on producing a summary
for how/why people become involved in CS programs and formulating a critique of these
reasons based on conceptualizations of the good citizen (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and the
complex audience member (education student) (Andreotti, 2016). With these discussions
forming the ground work, I then move into a deeper analysis and critique of child sponsorship
by drawing on a pedagogical tool and framework conceptualization referred to as HEADS UP
(Alasuutari & Andreotti, 2015; Andreotti, 2012b, 2016).
2. Contexts, Caveats, and Confessions (Some Background)
In addition to outlining here what this paper aims to do, I also find it valuable to
discuss what the paper does not aim to do. In this text, I do not endeavour to provide a history
on the development of CS programs; several others have done this elsewhere (Fieldston,
2014; Watson, 2015). It is significant to note however that, even though CS programs have
recently become large-scale fundraising machines, this situation is not reflective of how or
why they were originally developed in the 1920s. According to Watson (2015), “a key feature
of the early child sponsorship programme seems to have become lost, namely, that it was
designed for the short-term support of undernourished children, primarily within family or
institutional settings at times of chronic food shortages” (p. 877). This short term, less
widespread support soon evolved into much larger-scale, longer-term international programs,
presumably “because of their usefulness as a marketing tool for mobilizing resources in rich
countries to reduce poverty in poor countries” (Wydick, Glewwe, & Rutledge, 2013, p. 400),
or so they were marketed. In this text, I also do not aim to discuss specific arrangements of
different child sponsorship organizations nor into whether evidence exists for how/if they are
doing what they say they do and the corresponding impacts. Wydick et al. (2013) set out to
study the impact of one organization, Compassion International, by conducting interviews
with previously sponsored children who are now adults. These authors state that “[g]iven the
number of individuals involved in child sponsorship relationships and the billions of dollars
committed to them, it is surprising that almost no research exists that evaluates the impacts of
these programs” (p. 397-398). Watson and Clarke (2014) also point to how the topic is under-
researched, and “[t]hat so few scholars and industry insiders have sought to interrogate the
emergence, evolution and contribution of CS INGOs makes it difficult to evaluate their
legitimacy” (p. 3). These authors claim that available information is primarily in the form of

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journalistic/newspaper type stories or in-house publications from the NGOs themselves, and
only a small quantity of “fragmented scholarly literature” (p. 3).
3. Some Foreground on Child Sponsorship
This paper begins from the premise that child sponsorship (CS) is a form of charity,
not justice. A clear distinction between the two is provided by Saskatchewan Council for
International Cooperation (SCIC) in stating that “... charity is aid given to those in need;
justice is fairness, equitable distribution of wealth, resources and power among all members
of society” (SCIC, 2017, p. 3). While charity may be defined very simply by these few words
(“aid given to those in need”), Rabbitts (2012) reminds us of the messiness of charity, that it
“is ethically and practically embedded in everyday life [through] a constellation of decisions,
values, strategies and practices” (p. 926). According to SCIC (2017), “[o]ne of the biggest
risks of doing charity only work is that charity often satisfies people’s impulse for change. If
they feel like they’ve already ‘done their part’ or created change, then they may move on
without actually having made any long-term difference” (p. 18). This paper seeks to carefully
and critically examine one (ubiquitous) form of charity known as child sponsorship – “an
attractive charitable scheme for people in the Global North that has enjoyed enduring, indeed
increasing, popularity since its inception in the 1930s” (Rabbitts, 2012, p. 926).
While this paper presents an argument against CS, I feel the need to begin by
acknowledging the complexity of the issue and to note that I am not suggesting child sponsors
have been duped into participating or that they are always unaware of where CS ‘fits’ in the
big scheme of things with respect to justice, global citizenship, and development goals. Ove
(2018) found in his study that many sponsors “described sponsorship as a way to help that
was relatively minor but something they could manage” (p. 112), that “it was easily
something they could do” (p. 115) and it was perceived by them as providing “valuable and
straightforward benefits to the child” (p. 11). However, in spite of unintentional and
misrecognized outcomes on the part of child sponsors, it is critical to raise awareness that
“well-intended interventions might circularly reproduce the very patterns that they seek to
transform” (Andreotti et al., 2018, p. 14).
I position myself in this text in a similar manner to Yuen (2008) in believing that child
sponsorship reflects “well-intentioned but misguided acts of charity” (p. 2). Thus, I am careful
not to approach this task of reviewing and critiquing with disdain for those involved since I

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recognize that “sponsors of children donate out of a genuine concern for underprivileged
‘others’” (Yuen, 2008, p. 2). However, as Andreotti (2012a) aptly points out with regard to
Northern initiatives aimed at alleviating poverty in the global South, we must become more
aware of “the reproduction of historical harm through the solutions we propose” (p. 21), and
comprehend the connection between our ‘good’ intentions to stop harm and our complicity in
doing harm in relation to poverty interventions. In other words, Andreotti (2012a) argues that
“if we understand the problems and the reasons behind them in simplistic ways, we may do
more harm than good” (p. 25).
3.1 What is Child Sponsorship?
As defined by Yuen (2008), child sponsorship “entails a personal relationship between
a sponsor and child, with monthly payments being sent by the sponsor in exchange for a
picture of the child, letter exchanges, an annual report on how the child is progressing, and a
general sense of connection” (p. 3). Simply stated, child sponsorship programs “are based on
the concept of a one-to-one relationship between a donor in a developed country and a child
in a developing country” (Noh, 2019, p. 1420).
CS is, by far, “the most successful fundraising tool of all time” (Smillie, 2017, p. 116).
For example, Smillie (2017) reports that, in 2014, World Vision “raised CAD 270 million in
cash donations, of which almost 83 percent were in the form of child sponsorship” (p. 116).
That is close to CAD 225 million raised because of CS (because is italicized here since
organizations confirm that, while CS may be the tool to raise the funds, not all of the funds
raised through this tool are actually used for CS).
Descriptions of child sponsorship programs, including their purpose, activities,
audience and effectiveness vary somewhat across contexts, making it important to carefully
outline a few working definitions and assumptions for this paper. Firstly, child sponsorship
(CS) is an activity of many, but not all, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs
or just NGOs). These NGOs are typically, but not always, associated with a
church/denomination and, in Canada, include (among several others) World Vision Canada,
Plan International Canada, Compassion Canada, Chalice, and Canadian Feed the Children.
While these organizations exist and operate in Canada, they are generally part of larger
multinational (globally-based) organizations.

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As noted by Watson and Clarke (2014), the CS activities of NGOs share “a number of
common characteristics including a historic emphasis on regular giving, the motivation of
donating to benefit individuals, and the provision of regular updates for the benefit of
sponsors” (p. 2). In addition, of course, the one common characteristic across all contexts is
the focus on children, though it has not always been on children in the global South but on
short term support throughout the world in times of food shortages (as briefly discussed in the
previous section).
3.2 Connections between child sponsorship, justice, global citizenship and
development education
As offered earlier, justice can be described as “fairness, equitable distribution of
wealth, resources and power among all members of society” (SCIC, 2017, p. 3). According to
social theorist Nancy Fraser (2007), parity of participation is “the most general meaning of
justice” (p. 20), where “justice requires social arrangements that permit all to participate as
peers in social life” (p. 20). Westheimer and Kahne (2004), in their work on educating for
democracy, ask the question of what kind of citizens support such national and global goals.
Noh (2019) defines ‘global citizens’ as people “who have critical understanding of
interconnectedness, share values of responsibility, respect for differences, and commit
themselves to actions” (p. 1422). Notwithstanding the tendency of NGOs to “associate child
sponsorship with the booming concept of the ‘global citizen’” (Noh, 2019, p. 1422), such an
association is, it seems, a far cry from the truth. This paper draws attention to why acts of
charity (in the form of child sponsorship or other), initiated to help the ‘other’, do not
construct/educate global citizens. In fact, MacQueen and Ferguson-Patrick (2015) refer to
charity as a “reflexive response” which should be avoided since it positions those in the
global south as the less fortunate ‘other’ and does not achieve lasting change (p. 115).
Educating to construct global citizens takes “a more reflective and critical pedagogy and
curriculum... [which] examine power and privilege” (MacQueen & Ferguson-Patrick, 2015, p.
115).
While it has already been noted there is a paucity of research overall on child
sponsorship, including its effectiveness and its impact, perhaps the greatest deficiency of
information is with respect to how CS advertising impacts young people in the North (Tallon
& Watson, 2015, p. 298). Tallon and Watson (2014) support, overall, the promotion of child

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sponsorship in schools; however, they also admit that even a well-intentioned teacher’s use of
CS in development education “is potentially complex and can reinforce binary divisions
regarding the world... [and] this may undermine effective development education for young
people whose depth of understanding and motivation for informed engagement will impact
North-South interactions in the future” (p. 298). Hennick et al. (2012) claim “there is little
empirical research to understand how those at the centre of development practice define and
implement programmes that promote empowerment as a route towards development and
poverty reduction” (p. 204). This paper argues that, “in the absence of a pedagogically sound
development education curriculum” (Tallon & Watson, 2014, p. 299), advertising, promoting,
and facilitating CS in schools is not an empowering route toward development. Addressing
root causes of poverty and inequality in the South (which unavoidably implicate those in the
North) along with “advancing student understanding of poverty, exclusion, geographic
disadvantage, unfair trade, colonial legacies and a range of related issues” (Tallon & Watson,
2014, p. 299) are essential components of development education. Such issues, however,
challenge many aspects of privileged lifestyles in the North and so tend to be only
superficially discussed, or avoided altogether. In fact, Andreotti’s (2016) research on
international development and global citizenship education in higher educational contexts
focuses “on the difficulties of starting important conversations about social historical
processes that systemically reproduce material, discursive and political inequalities” (p. 101).
4. What the Literature on Child Sponsorship Says
In this section, I present my results of the review in the form of a collection of reasons,
or motivations, for becoming involved in child sponsorship as a sponsor, as synthesized from
the research literature. For consistency of presentation, I will use the word motivation, rather
than reason, in this discussion. Motivation can be defined “in terms of drives, urges, hopes, or
aspirations that trigger a progression of events leading to a behavior” (Prendergast & Maggie,
2013, p. 131).
A careful reading and synthesis of the literature on child sponsorship revealed eight
(8) different motivations for becoming involved in child sponsorship. In essence, the
motivations serve to foreground, in this paper, why/how CS has been so ‘successful’ before
moving into the critique. In reality, the motivations overlap, intersect, contradict, and, often
times, even erase each other, though the way in which they are presented and discussed here

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does not accurately reflect those complexities and intersections. The eight motivations
discussed are: personal connection; altruism; guilt; small win; part of something bigger;
distrust of government; not faceless; advancing development.
4.1 Personal connection
According to Rabbitts (2012), the “popularity of child sponsorship within the
landscape of global charity rests on its offer of felt personal connection and dialogue with
specific others” (p. 934). Wydick et al. (2013) suggest that those who market child
sponsorship programs realize that “contact with an individual child creates a commitment
device to help donors contribute a fraction of their monthly income to alleviating child
poverty in developing countries via a relationship with a particular child living in poverty” (p.
400). That is, “international sponsorship programs mobilize resources by drawing on the
psychological and moral instincts people possess to care for their own children” (p. 400-401).
Other research supports this; for example, based on interviews with their child sponsor
participants, Prendergast and Maggie (2013) recommend that, from a marketing perspective,
child sponsorship organizations would be wise to capitalize on the sponsors’ reported
importance of feeling like their sponsored child is a friend or family member; that such a
personal and familial link (“birds of a feather” phenomenon (p. 135)) further drives the
commitment and leads to satisfaction. Similarly, Rabbitts (2012) highlights the importance of
the ordinary, everyday contexts in noting that “child sponsorship is experienced and made
meaningful through the familiar, and particularly the familial” (p. 930). This author contends
that “[c]entral to the appeal of child sponsorship is the promise of personal connection... [and]
the satisfying feeling of making a difference” (p. 929).
4.2 Altruism
Some research points to the action/behavior of charity (charitable donations) as being
driven by a combination of four motives: altruism, egoism, accountability and guilt
(Prendergast & Maggie, 2013, p. 131). These four motives are, however, generally associated
with one-time charitable giving behavior and so do not fully represent an understanding and

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untangling of the motivations behind the more sustained, long-term charitable action of child
sponsorship.
Altruism can be defined as the belief in, and practice of, unselfish concern for the
well-being of others, even at the expense of it being risky or costly to the giver. Merely
defining charity, and correspondingly child sponsorship, as altruistic acts done for public
benefit fails to acknowledge “that charity is a socially situated practice, inseparable from
wider relational contexts, as well as more intimate geographies within bodies, minds, hearts
and souls” (Rabbitts, 2012, p. 927). It could be said that “[d]espite the common association of
charity with altruism... charitable ethics are irreducible to it” (Rabbitts, 2012, p. 929) since
charitable “gifts are shown to be inextricably bound up in webs of reciprocity and relations of
power” (p. 929), demonstrated in, for example, child sponsorship letter-writing
correspondence between donor and child.
Prendergast and Maggie (2013) elaborate on altruistic motives by explaining them in
terms of wanting to enhance the lives of those who are considered disadvantaged and also in
connection with humanitarian goals and emotions of simply wanting to help others (p. 131).
Like Rabbitts (2012), these authors also suggest that “reciprocity has been linked with a wide
variety of ostensibly altruistic behaviors,” as well as the expectation of “some future return”
(p. 131).
4.3 Guilt
Wydick et al. (2013) claim that “[i]nternational sponsorship programs arose because of
their usefulness as a marketing tool for mobilizing resources in rich countries to reduce
poverty in poor countries” (p. 400). Prendergast and Maggie (2013) position a discussion on
guilt central to a key motive for becoming involved, specifically existential guilt (p. 131).
Equating existential guilt with social responsibility guilt, these authors state that such feelings
“arise when one feels guilty about being more fortunate than other people” (p. 131). In Ove’s
(2018) study, one research participant (child sponsor) was quoted as saying: “I feel almost
guilty living in the lap of luxury in this beautiful part of the world that it eases my conscience
somewhat that I am contributing, even though it is in a minute way, to a child of the Third
World” (p. 118).

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4.4 It’s a ‘small win’...
It has been suggested that “[p]eople often define social problems in ways that
overwhelm their ability to do anything about them” (Weick, 1984, as cited in Mittelman &
Neilson, 2011, p. 385). Accordingly, Weick (1984) “recommends a strategy of ‘small wins’,
where people identify a series of smaller, less overwhelming actions which can lead to visible
results” (as cited in Mittelman & Neilson, 2011, pp. 385-386). In other words, child
sponsorship is seen by the public (potential donors) as a ‘small win’ in the face of so many
overwhelming problems that seem out of the realm of any control or influence. As will be
discussed later, Andreotti (2016) suggests that focusing on the small win that child
sponsorship offers serves to highlight a person’s need to be affirmed as doing good and
making a difference without the risk of “paralysing and alienating” the person (p. 106). Many
CS organizations highlight this need in their marketing, such as Canadian Feed the Children’s
statement: “Sponsoring a child is recognized more and more as a terrific way to make a
difference in the world” (Canadian Feed the Children, 2020). The language of “make a
difference”, “help”, “personally rescue” and “save a life” appears throughout child
sponsorship promotional materials, and was drawn on extensively by sponsors and
sponsorship organization staff in Ove’s (2018) study. However, as noted by Ove (2018), these
promotional materials seldom, if ever, attempt to educate the donor on the issues; that is, they
fail to raise awareness of the deeper injustices and inequities, or the role played by the North
in producing and reproducing them. Unfortunately, the ‘small win’ here, which is designed to
make sponsors feel good and avoid paralysing or alienating them, often comes at a huge
ethical cost: leading sponsors to believe that they are involved in a valuable development
intervention, while failing to understand that child sponsorship “is primarily a fund raising
tool even though it is routinely described as something else” (Ove, 2018, p. 68). That is, “the
ethical value of child sponsorship comes disproportionately from its misrecognition as
something other than an effective way to raise money” (Ove, 2018, p. 68).
4.5 ... but it’s also part of something bigger
Following the previous motivation for becoming involved in CS—that is, because CS
is seen to represent a small win— Rabbitts (2012) offers that that such a small win can also
provide “a sense of being ‘part of something bigger’” (p. 934). In fact, CS organizations are

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strategic about interweaving their presence into the everyday lives and concerns of donors.
Rabbitts (2012) offers an interesting metaphor for why CS is so successful in describing how
it works “through familiar faces, languages and practices” (p. 934) to define a collectivity (or
‘community of the faithful’) which can be seen to combat “the aches and pains of poverty
through the generous movements of its healthier limbs” (p. 934). In other words, the metaphor
depicts how CS organizations will often seek to enfold their fund-raising efforts into familiar,
already-existing networks and spaces of potential sponsors, and (some would say) none any
better than churches, “a context where hearts and minds are (in theory) predisposed to care
about and through charity” (Ibid, 2012, p. 934). In fact, several of Rabbitts’ (2012) research
participants were significantly influenced by “Biblically-based frameworks for self-
development” (p. 929) and, for them, “sponsorship becomes a performance of individual
obedience to God” (p. 929). Some of these participants expressed excitement at the thought
that their performance of obedience could lead to evangelism through charity. Based on her
research interviews, Rabbits (2012) suggests that “[f]or many Christians, enabling evangelism
through their giving is as important as fighting poverty, or even more so” (p. 930).
The ‘something bigger’ is found in the interweaving of “Christian moral landscapes
with landscapes of charity” (Rabbits, 2012, p. 934), serving to demonstrate “how charities
seek strategically –even evangelistically – to enter into familiar networks and spaces of
supporter lives... Churches can become key nodes in webs of advocacy, forming networks of
encouragement to responsible action and providing both involvement opportunities and a
culture in which charity is highly valued” (Rabbits, 2012, p. 933). O’Neill (2013) writes of
the “evangelical Christian imperative” that arose in the 1980s which “ultimately put a
premium on those charitable organizations that could deliver bite-sized bits of caritas to the
masses” (p. 209), which child sponsorship delivered “in spades” (p. 209).
4.6 Distrust of foreign aid and government programs
Some argue that CS emerged at a time when “a climate of public disillusion and
distrust surrounded foreign aid programs” (Mittelman & Neilson, 2011, p. 372), leading to “a
turning point in international development efforts focused on children” (p. 371). As noted by
Noh (2019), “[w]hile support for foreign aid tends to wane due to some negative images of
developing countries with growing concern about security... children are perceived as
innocent victims of chronic poverty and civil wars” (p. 1421). Similarly, Fieldston (2014)

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offers that “[c]hild sponsorship programs promoted a new understanding of world affairs that
transformed foreign relations from the realm of politicians and diplomats into the province of
ordinary men, women and children” (p. 240). This, however, raises the question of whether
distrust in government aid has been replaced by a naïve trust in aid through non-governmental
organizations. Perhaps the new concern with development aid is that “today it goes largely
unquestioned that its purpose is to help meet the basic needs of the less-fortunate who are
unable to meet those needs for themselves… In reality, however, basic needs—as defined
today—are a modern fiction” (Esteva, Babones & Babcicky¸ 2013, p. 17).
4.7 Child sponsorship is not faceless
Wydick et al. (2013) consider CS programs to be “among the most effective means of
mobilizing resources to benefit children in developing countries” and even in harsh economic
times, CS survives quite well compared to another “large, well-intentioned – yet relatively
faceless—nonprofit organization” (p. 401). In these “faceless” charitable situations, donors do
not generally expect or anticipate personal, direct contact with the beneficiaries of their
giving. While donors may be driven to donate by the highly influential motives of altruism,
egoism, accountability, and/or guilt, it is the faceless, nameless, and impersonal nature of their
commitment which enables giving to end with much less pull on the heart strings.
In the study by Prendergast and Maggie (2013), a key finding was that because
sponsors had a close knowledge of and relationship with the child, and strongly believed that
the money was directly impacting the lives of the children, the sponsors expressed concern
“about the impact on the children if sponsorship was withdrawn” (p. 138). In some cases, the
sponsors admitted to sustaining their sponsorship because they felt guilty and did not want to
damage/lose the close relationship with the child. Prendergast and Maggie (2013) share that
“[e]ven though some sponsors may face financial problems and think of giving up, they will
be reluctant to stop because they have already established a close relationship with their
sponsored children and do not want to let the children down and damage the current
relationship or the child’s living conditions” (p. 134). Eekelen (2013) confirms this advantage
for NGOs to keep a name and a face for child sponsors, as the strategy makes sponsors feel
important by “tell[ing] each sponsor that much depends on his or her monthly contributions as
nobody else sponsors this child” (p. 471). The website of Canadian Feed the Children states:
“Remember: there is no such thing as a selfish reason! Children will benefit whatever your

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reason” (Canadian Feed the Children, 2020, emphasis in original). Whether the motivation is
fed by loyalty, guilt, or other is unknown, but it does make “sponsorship an unusually lengthy
and stable source of NGO income” (Eekelen, 2013, p. 472).
It is key to note that even though some NGOs have transitioned to a community-based
model, their fund-raising strategies still involve the selection of a specific child to sponsor.
Perhaps this makes sense in light of Eekelen’s (2013) comment that “people find it easier to
empathise with an individual than with a group, and are thus attracted to programmes in
which their contributions benefit a needy person with a face and a name” (p. 469). In other
words, Eekelen (2013) refers to “the ‘empathetic telescope’ effect: by nature, people are most
easily persuaded to assist when they hear a cry for help from a single individual” (p. 471).
Charitable organizations who fundraise through child sponsorship know “the central tenet of
marketing: understanding the needs and wants of their customers (donors)” (Prendergast and
Maggie, 2013, p. 130).
4.8 To feel that one is advancing the project of ‘development’
Eekelen (2013) proposes that CS “provides the sponsors with a window into the lives
of people in a developing country [which] may lead to more active interest in international
development efforts” (p. 472). Ziai (2013), on the other hand, advocates for abandoning the
discourse of ‘development,’ calling it an “all-too-vague concept with dubious implications”
(p. 133), including the (re)production of a less/more dichotomy (further discussed in section
6.2). In later work, Ziai (2017) refers to present day as the post-development period, 25 years
after The Development Dictionary (Sachs, 1992). Through metaphors of obituaries, corpses,
and zombies, Ziai (2017) (and others; see NI, 2020) draws on the work of several post-
development scholars to assess the condition of development, wondering whether it is “alive
and well, rotting away or already undead?” (p. 2555). He notes that “[w]hat is clear is that the
problems often referred to under the heading of ‘underdeveloped’—misery and inequality,
violence and hunger, to name but a few—have not disappeared” (p. 2555). Escobar (2012),
who traces critiques of development discourses back to the 1960s and 1970s, points out that
“the term underdeveloped—linked from a certain vantage point to equality and the prospects
of liberation through development—can be seen in part as a response to more openly racist
conceptions of ‘the primitive’ and ‘the savage’” (p. 227).

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Escobar (2012) is optimistic, even hopeful, in offering that “a growing number of
researchers, activists, and intellectuals outside of the academy are heeding the urge to provide
alternative understandings of the world, including of development” (p. xi). He refers to these
as “complex conversations” (p. xi) and, in my assessment, they are becoming audible in the
conversations and debates across the field focused on rethinking and renaming international
development (Büscher, 2019; Fischer, 2019; Horner & Hulme, 2019). In fact, Horner &
Hulme (2019) advocate for a more holistic understanding by “[m]oving from international to
global development [as] a recognition that we live in ‘one world’—albeit with major
inequalities—and not in a ‘North’ or ‘South’ or in First and Third Worlds” (p. 368). When it
comes to development and child sponsorship, New Internationalist has some valuable advice:
“Whenever you encounter the word 'development' try and substitute another word or phrase
that makes it clearer what is meant,” offering “that the best substitute word in this case would
be 'justice'” (NI, 1992).
On the topic of development education for sponsors, Clarke and Watson (2014) note
that “the ‘marketing’ of development has seemingly overtaken development education” (p.
326). Even these authors, who are strong advocates for CS, acknowledge a lack of deeper
engagement and call for sponsors to receive “information that considers larger issues of
inequity, power imbalances, national security, et cetera” as a way to “strengthen development
education and decouple—to a large extent—knowledge transfer of development from further
fundraising appeals and campaigns” (p. 326).
5. Theoretical Perspectives of Critique
Having presented a collection of several motivations for people becoming involved in
CS programs, as teased out of the research literature, in this section I focus on formulating a
critique of these motivations grounded in, primarily, conceptualizations of the good citizen
(Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and the complex audience member (education student)
(Andreotti, 2016). I draw on these conceptualizations due to my strong identification with the
school classroom and the education of future teachers as global citizens; others, however,
have conducted more specific citizenship education research with in-service and preservice
teachers (see, for example, Buchanan & Varadharajan, 2018; Tupper & Cappello, 2012). With
these two conceptualizations forming the ground work, I then move into a deeper analysis and
critique of child sponsorship by drawing on the pedagogical tool and framework

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conceptualization of HEADS UP (Alasuutari & Andreotti, 2015; Andreotti, 2011, 2012b,
2016). In the following three subsections, I provide an overview of each of these
conceptualizations, referring (where relevant) to illustrations of their application.
5.1 Through the lens of the good citizen
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) draw attention to “the spectrum of ideas about what
good citizenship is and what good citizens do” (p. 237), proposing a framework to “highlight
several important political dimensions of efforts to educate citizens for democracy” (p. 239).
Their framework includes three conceptions of citizenship: personally responsible,
participatory, and justice-oriented. A poignant illustration provided by these researchers to
illustrate the distinction between the 3 kinds of citizens is offered in terms of actions
completed by each citizen to address, for example, the issue of hunger in a local community:
the personally responsible citizen would be donating food, the participatory citizen would
likely organize the food drive, and the justice-oriented citizen would be “asking why people
are hungry and acting on what they discover” (p. 242).
In relation to schools and citizenship education, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) note
that these three types of citizens “embody significantly different beliefs” and “carry
significantly different implications for pedagogy, curriculum, evaluation, and educational
policy” (p. 263). These authors claim that, by definition, the personally responsible citizen has
a “focus on individual acts of compassion and kindness, not on collective social action and the
pursuit of social justice” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004, p. 244). Their “focus is conservative
and individualistic in that it emphasizes charity, personal morality, and the efforts of
individuals rather than working to alter institutional structures through collective action” (p.
266). Considering these 3 types of citizens, informed by the literature reviewed on child
sponsorship, my claim here is that the child sponsor is an example of the personally
responsible citizen.
To address the question of whether people will normally shift, or evolve, through the
different levels of citizenship as they become more engaged and educated, Westheimer and
Kahne (2004) claim “initiatives that support the development of personally responsible
citizens may not be effective in increasing participation in local or national affairs” and
“programs that champion participation do not necessarily develop students’ abilities to
analyze and critique root causes of social problems” (p. 264). In fact, these authors even

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suggest “there are some indications that curriculum and education policies designed to foster
personal responsibility undermine efforts to prepare both participatory and justice-oriented
citizens” (p. 264). Consider, for example, one particular organization operating throughout
Catholic schools in Canada (Chalice); in effect, their promotion of child sponsorship
programs falls into the category of championing the personally responsible citizen which, I
would claim, comes at a cost of neglecting the deeper issues and concerns of the justice-
oriented citizen.
5.2 Through the lens of the complex audience member
Andreotti (2016) describes her challenges as an educator and educational researcher in
the areas of global citizenship and international development. With some notable parallels to
Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) three conceptions of citizenship, Andreotti offers a four
audience-orientation conceptualization which “reflect different levels of willingness to engage
with [international development] issues in depth” (pp. 105-106). For her, the audience is
primarily university students; however, the applicability of the conceptualization, I would
argue, extends beyond that specific audience and into the realm of the general public.
The four audience-orientations are (p. 106): Seeking awareness for inspiration;
problem solving for personal affirmation; circular criticality; education for existence
otherwise. Students in the first two audience orientations are generally described as those
willing to pay attention to an issue as long as practical solutions are readily available and the
issue (or solution) does not threaten their existing investments or privilege. In other words,
there is a need “to feel, to look, and to be seen as doing ‘good’” (p. 106). The third audience,
which might be considered comparable to Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) justice-oriented
citizen, includes students who are open to deeper critiques of injustices and they can even
begin to recognize their own complicity in historical asymmetries and structural harms.
However, it is only the fourth audience that appreciates the full complexity and uncertainty
involved in reframing and re-centring the modern subject, vocabulary, and institution.
Andreotti (2016) suggests that the majority of her students are situated in the second
audience. With respect to the topic at hand in this paper, child sponsorship can be seen to fit
into the “feel, look and be seen as doing good” characterization of the first or second
audience, with critiques of injustices and/or awareness of complicity in (re)producing
injustices being mostly absent from the CS discourse.

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5.3 Through the lens of HEADS UP
Andreotti et al. (2018) claim “...initiatives that attempt to address global challenges
without critically examining historical and systemic patterns of oppression and inequality tend
to promote simplistic understandings of global problems and solutions, paternalistic North-
South engagements and ethnocentric views of justice and change” (p. 14). Andreotti (2012a)
asks the question: “How can one ethically and professionally address the hegemony,
ethnocentrism, ahistoricism, depoliticization, paternalism, and deficit theorization of
difference that abound in educational approaches benevolently concerned with (helping,
fixing, defending, educating, assimilating, or giving voice to) the Other?” (p. 22). Her
response to the question is to propose HEADS UP, the acronym for a pedagogical tool and
framework designed “to start conversations about local/global initiatives… that may
inadvertently reproduce seven problematic historical patterns of thinking and relationships”
(Andreotti, 2012b, p. 2):
H: Hegemony
E: Ethnocentrism
A: Ahistoricism
D: Depoliticization
S: Self-congratulatory and self-serving
U: Un-complicated solutions
P: Paternalism
6. Viewing Child Sponsorship Motivations through HEADS UP
While I adopt the acronym and corresponding intentions of HEADS UP for my
analysis, I adapt (with permission) the questions posed in the framework/tool (as in Andreotti,
2011, 2012b, 2016) as well as in other sources who have adapted the framework to suit their
specific contexts (see, for example, Tallon & Watson (2014) who, coincidentally, adapt and
apply the tool to suit their analysis of CS). I construct and present my analysis by naming and
defining each letter of the HEADS UP acronym (predominantly drawing on the words of
Andreotti), and presenting an example question associated with the problematic. Alasuutari &
Andreotti (2015) describe these questions as “the kinds of questions that could be asked [of an

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initiative] in the process of supporting Northern development workers to interrupt problematic
patterns of representation and engagement with Southern communities” (p. 84). In asking the
question, I turn to the topic of CS and offer important perspectives for arguing that CS does
not interrupt problematic patterns but, instead, is more likely to be implicated in reinforcing
the “seven problematic patterns of representations and engagements commonly found in
narratives about development, poverty, wealth, global change, particularly in North-South
engagements, as well as engagements with local structurally marginalised populations”
(Andreotti et al., 2018, p. 15).
6.1 Hegemony
Andreotti (2012b) defines the problematic of hegemony as “justifying superiority and
supporting domination” (p. 2). In essence, a hegemonic practice is one that lies unchallenged,
while reinforcing and justifying the status quo (Andreotti et al., 2018). An important
characteristic of hegemony is in how a well-intentioned action escapes questioning with
regard to how it might be complicit in the reproduction of the problematic. Tallon and Watson
(2014), in their application of HEADS UP to child sponsorship, pose the question
corresponding to the problematic of hegemony as “How can an initiative like CS support or
counter the idea that the Global North is superior?” (p. 309). Their response is, in my analysis,
sketchy at best.
There is little chance that child sponsorship as it is presently conceived and
operationalized can interrupt the hegemony problematic since, as discussed earlier in this
paper, motivations for becoming a child sponsor centre on feelings of helping Others from a
privileged and perceived superior (economically or otherwise) position. Not only are the
standards of the west viewed as superior and conditions to aim for but a belief is perpetuated
that those from the west have the power or capability to change and enrich the lives of Others.
As claimed by Chalice (a Catholic-based child sponsorship organization): “Since its
inception, Chalice has been enriching lives, while restoring hope and dignity to people in
developing countries through our sponsorship program” (Chalice, 2019).
As noted earlier, existential and social responsibility guilt are key in motivating and
sustaining the charitable act of child sponsorship. SCIC (2017) states, however, that along
with charity “it is imperative that we dig deeper to identify and understand the root causes of
poverty. This can be done, in part, through a justice and solidarity approach to global poverty”

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(p. 3). Such an approach, however, can represent a crisis for those whose own privilege risks
being placed under a microscope. Taylor’s (2011) work analyzes “the ways students resist
crises of implication and difficult knowledge as well as moments in which they sit in the crisis
in attempt to respond and self-position in exploratory, ethical ways” (p. 181). The problem,
according to Taylor (2011), when pedagogical practices “offer consolation rather than critical
and ethical tools to respond” (p. 181) is that “these practices operate to close down the
anxious, violent crisis of learning selves exposed to the overwhelming, disorienting call to
recognize and revise their habitual and hegemonic relationship to global Others, a closure
wrought through the restoration of their moral superiority and authority” (p. 181).
6.2 Ethnocentrism
In Andreotti (2012b), ethnocentrism is defined as “projecting one view as universal”
(p. 2), with this one view often seen (by those who have it) as superior to all other
perspectives. The fact that other voices, or perspectives, are not heard or valued contributes to
the (re) production of dangerous and simplistic binaries, such as us/them and have/have not.
To clarify the problematic of ethnocentrism, Andreotti (2012b) asks if the initiative implies
“that anyone who disagrees with what is proposed is completely wrong or immoral” (p. 2).
About this problematic, Tallon and Watson (2014) ask: “How can CS address ethnocentrism
and seek to portray a more complex notion of ‘going forward’ and alternative futures that
include a range of voices?” (p. 309).
As noted in the discussion on motivations for becoming involved in CS, one common
guilt-producing message used in CS fundraising is to imply that the sponsor is fortunate to be
on the ‘right’ side of the have/have not binary and that if they choose not to sponsor (or to not
continue sponsoring) the child, then no one else will. Instead of embracing greater complexity
and encouraging a range of voices to be included, CS fundraising initiatives generally make a
point of emphasizing how, in the face of overwhelming complexity, CS can be seen as
manageable, as a ‘small win,’ and a means of doing one’s part for development.
Arguing for dismissing or replacing the concept of development, Ziai (2013) states
that the concept has “Eurocentric, depoliticising, and authoritarian implications” (p. 127).
These implications include framing the ‘Other’ as lacking, backward, and inferior, and in
need of social change “therapy” that will move them closer to the standards of the West,
including being “more modern, more productive, more secular, more democratic, etc.” (p.

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128). On the idea of ‘more,’ Ziai (2013) proposes that if one is drawn to “measure the
qualities of different ways of living and compare them” (p. 134) for the purposes of deciding
who has a more ‘developed’ or ‘better’ life, then perhaps we should be sure to include in our
measurement data reports on “incidences of suicide and violent crime, racism and sexism, the
propensity to conduct wars, the relation to nature and other societies, and therefore the
pressing question to what extent a certain way of living depends on the subordination of other
economics and ecologies (their resources, their labour power) for its consumption patterns or
on the production of exclusion and inequality” (p. 134). In proposing a radical manifesto for
the future of development, Esteva et al. (2013) offer: “It is impossible and illegitimate to
compare different notions of living well and to declare one of them better or worse than the
others” (p. 20).
In citing international development scholars, Andreotti (2016) indicates that “to justify
interventions and continuous exploitation that benefitted the ‘First World’, the ‘Third World’
was necessarily produced as ‘backward, irrational, poor, terroristic, weak, exotic,
fundamentalist, passive, etc. [so that the West could be produced as] civilised, rational,
scientific, rich, strong, secular, active, etc.’” (Kapoor, 2014, p. 1127). From a
psychoanalytical perspective, Kapoor (2014) shows:
… exposing the production of these historical hierarchical dichotomies is not enough
to change them because our attachments to these hierarchies are not only cognitive or
conscious... we are libidinally bound to the pleasures of this uneven global imaginary
and its by-products (nationalism, exceptionalism, consumerism, materialism and
individualism) as we enjoy the (false) sense of stability, fulfilment and satisfaction that
they provide (belonging, community, togetherness, prestige, heroism and pride).
(Kapoor, 2014, as cited in Andreotti, 2016, pp. 103-104)
Decolonial scholars Mignolo and Walsh (2018) offer that “decoloniality seeks to make
visible, open up, and advance radically distinct perspectives and positionalities that displace
Western rationality as the only framework and possibility of existence, analysis, and thought”
(p. 17). Ove (2018), who presents a “critique of child sponsorship by attempting to locate it
within the broader networks of power and knowledge referred to as the discourse of
development” (p. 151), describes how the key “underlying tension surrounding the value of
child sponsorship… comes from an ethical dilemma at the core of the idea of development:
what defines a good life, who gets to decide this, and how can people best be allowed to
achieve it?” (p. 151). In line with this critique of the discourse of development, Esteva et al.
(2013) state:

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… the entire development literature… frames the issue of development from the
standpoint of those who haven’t needing to catch up with those who have. The US and
Europe are ahead; the rest of the world is behind. The task of development theory and
practice is to guide ‘the rest’ toward catch-up with the West (pp. 28-29).
6.3 Ahistoricism
Andreotti et al. (2018) define ahistorical thinking as “forgetting the role of historical
legacies and complicities in shaping current problems” (p. 15). A question posed from this
point of analysis might be: “[D]oes this initiative introduce a problem in the present without
reference to why this problem exists and how ‘we’ are connected to the making of that?”
(Andreotti, 2012b, p. 2). Framed in the language of CS, the problematic named ahistoricism
asks if CS introduces the problem of child poverty without reference to why child poverty
exists and how the Global North (including the sponsors themselves) are connected to, and
implicated in, the problem of child poverty in the Global South.
Instead of offering “a complex historical analysis of the issue” (Andreotti, 2012b, p.
2), the literature in support of CS suggests that CS will often lead to greater interest and
involvement in development education. However, at the same time, other literature points to
the fact that sponsors are generally disinterested in further, in-depth analysis of the issues
connected with CS, such as global poverty, etc. (Ove, 2018). I return now to theory
introduced earlier in relation to the kinds of citizens (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and the
four audience members (Andreotti, 2016). Involvement as a child sponsor can be seen to
demonstrate the first level of citizen: the personally responsible citizen who has a “focus on
individual acts of compassion and kindness, not on collective social action and the pursuit of
social justice” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004, p. 244); their “focus is conservative and
individualistic in that it emphasizes charity, personal morality, and the efforts of individuals
rather than working to alter institutional structures through collective action” (p. 266). In the
language of the audience member, child sponsorship depicts level one or two, where the
sponsor is inspired toward charity or awareness-raising initiatives as long as their self-image
and existing investments/privileges are not threatened (Andreotti, 2016).
A possible response to this discussion on citizens could include rationalizing that these
different levels of citizens and corresponding involvement will always exist and that there is a
place in society for the personally responsible citizen just as there is with the justice-oriented.
Rationalizing in this way, however, avoids digging deeper into root causes of injustices and

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examining one’s own positioning and perspective that demands a shift. According to Ove
(2018), the shift in perspective “comes down to not seeing raising money as the key element
to combating global poverty and inequality” (p. 149). What is necessary is a clear and honest
portrayal of “the deeper issues involved in global inequality” (Ove, 2018, p. 149), which is
seldom part of child sponsorship promotional and educational materials. Instead, CS
educational and promotional materials advertise that “for little effort on the part of sponsors,
they can make a profound impact in the world and on themselves… sponsors do not just get
to feel good about themselves temporarily, but they become better people” (Ove, 2018, p.
145). Ove (2018) continues:
More than anything, this ridiculous ease with which we are invited to throw off history
and injustice and to consume our individual portion of the liberal pie is what makes
child sponsorship problematic. As part of a movement that sees people doing good by
enjoying or improving themselves, child sponsorship and its advertising helps
reposition what it means to live ethically in a terribly unequal and unjust world (pp.
145-146).
6.4 Depoliticization
In the HEADS UP framework, depoliticization is characterized as “disregarding power
inequalities and ideological roots of analyses and proposals” (Andreotti, 2012b, p. 2). A key
question associated with this problematic is to ask “[w]hat analyses of unequal power
relations between the parties involved has been performed?” (Alasuutari & Andreotti, 2015,
p. 86). The parties involved, in this case, could be the CS organizations and the sponsors or
the sponsors and the sponsored children.
Tallon and Watson (2015) express concern with the fact that CS “has been criticized in
the past for being apolitical” (p. 309) and so they ask how such a criticism “can be addressed
without confusing and alienating people, or dominating the debate with simplistic or idealistic
solutions” (p. 309). The irony in this question is that, for the most part, CS organizations
actually work to keep much of ‘the truth’ hidden (or at least not obviously visible) from
sponsors, in matters ranging from how the funds are used through to issues of Northern
complicity in global poverty and inequality.
With respect to the use of funds, Ove (2018) offers that “[w]hile no sponsorship
organization is explicitly fraudulent in their marketing about where sponsorship money
goes—it is always in the fine print that this money does not go directly to the child— they are

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not terribly forthright about it either” (Ove, 2018, p. 148). In conveying the message that the
money raised is either directly the solution, or serves to fund the solution, to the problem of
global poverty, Northern sponsorship programs “create the perceived situation in which the
more funds raised, the more ‘development’ done” (Ove, 2018, p. 68). Ove (2018) argues for a
development philosophy which “should not blame the poor or exonerate the wealthy, should
express a reliance on securing political will as much as promoting education, and should
argue the necessity for change in the North as much as in the South” (p. 150). Esteva et al.
(2013) simply and meaningfully declare: “People who are seriously interested in alleviating
other people’s suffering should begin by asking themselves if they are directly or indirectly
contributing to that suffering” (p. 19).
6.5 Self-congratulatory and self-serving
Self-congratulatory and self-serving (also referred to as salvationism in Andreotti’s
earlier work) are the terms used in the framework associated with being “invested in self-
congratulatory heroism” (Andreotti et al., 2018, p. 15), “oriented toward self-affirmation / CV
building” (Andreotti, 2016, p. 108), and “framing help as the burden of the fittest”
(Andreotti, 2012b, p. 2). The inter-connected questions posed by Andreotti in an attempt to
interrupt this problematic are: “How are marginalised peoples represented? How are those...
who intervene represented? How is the relationship between these two groups represented?”
(Andreotti, 2016, p. 108). In referring to this problematic as salvationism, Alasuutari and
Andreotti (2015) disavow how “marginalised peoples [are] presented as helpless and those
who intervene as benevolent, innocent, heroic and/or indispensable global leaders” (p. 86).
This problematic ties in so closely with several of the motivations previously
discussed (personal connection, guilt, altruism, and child sponsorship is not faceless) that it
begs the question of whether this one problematic and its question about how marginalised
people are represented stands out among the other six as signifying the face and body of this
child sponsorship critique. As noted in a 1982 issue of New Internationalist: “It is hardly
surprising that the sponsorship agencies choose children to be the focus of attention. Young
children produce instant sympathy and a ready response” (NI, 1982). However, in response to
the question of how marginalised people are represented, one need only look at how children
are (re)presented to potential sponsors.

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An article written by Mittelman and Neilson (2011) describes how the origins of child
sponsorship strongly objectified/commodified children through the use of photos, a practice
that continues today. Despite the fact that many organizations have altered this practice to
ensure that the photos of children are no longer considered “development porn” (Mittelman &
Neilson, 2011), organizations know the emotional draw of a child and this is played upon
such that child selection is akin to catalogue shopping. In fact, it is common for CS
organizations to “allow donors to choose from an array of ‘profiles’, which present
information about individual children with a recent photograph” (Rabbitts, 2012, p. 930). As
an example of such profiling, one of the participants in Rabbits’ (2012) study was quoted as
saying: “There were so many beautiful children on the table we couldn’t choose” (p. 930,
italics added). In Li’s (2017) analysis of the “consumption-oriented philanthropy” practices of
World Vision Canada, she writes:
The World Vision Canada gift catalogue is a prime example of idealizing the
transformative power of consumption—that is, the basic premise of the charity gift
catalogue is that donors can “shop for change”... the catalogue is so invested in the
idea that consumption is the most attractive and convenient type of action for donors
that it does not shy away from representing child victims as the “Product.” (p. 460)
Yuen (2008) synthesizes research which is critical of ‘using’ the child: “to represent
the innocence of youth isolated from the political and religious turmoil often affecting their
home countries” (p. 8); to be “emotionally manipulative” (p. 8), serving to either extract
money from wallets or elicit despair and guilt for not taking care of “our future”; and to
render the child as both consumer subjects and objects, with the latter reflected in the ability
to shop in a child catalogue where sponsors can select a preferred country, age, and gender of
the child.
In writing this text on Treaty 4 land (in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada), and
mindful of the reference to objectification/commodification above, I find it challenging not to
draw connections to the “Sixties Scoop,” which one source (Spencer, 2017) describes as the
practice of "how government authorities, often with no evidence of neglect required, took
thousands of Indigenous children away from their families based on the widespread belief that
Indigenous families were unfit to raise children” (p. 58). Bendo et al. (2018) claim "... the
Sixties Scoop was predicated on child welfare that presented a positive facade" (p. 400) when
it was really a cultural eliminationist strategy achieved through “forced removal and adoption

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under the child-saving guise” (p. 401). Spencer (2017) adds that “removing indigenous
children was viewed at this time as a public ‘feel good’ practice” (p. 58).
Bendo et al. (2018) describe a newspaper initiative (entitled Today’s Child, written by
Helen Allen) which began as a way to deal with the "hard-to-adopt" Indigenous children:
In 1964, The Telegram began running the Today’s Child written by reporter Helen
Allen. Allen’s column targeted would-be parents and advertised the child’s
characteristics, including appearance, race, sex and disability. Each edition featured a
photo of at least one child along with an address to contact Allen if the reader was
interested in adopting (p. 402).
As an example of settler colonialism, this sixties scoop worked to dominate the ‘prior’
Indigenous inhabitants (and by ‘prior’, Spencer (2017) refers to “an ancient past that is
incommensurate with the nation, with its promise of progress and civilization” (p. 60))
through many "techniques, including more direct forms of genocide as well as deceptive
approaches such as the normalisation and enculturation of Indigenous people into the
dominant settler ways of life" (p. 400). In this paper, I am drawn to connect these attitudes
and actions of the sixties scoop to a form of colonialism identified in the actions of CS— a
colonialism that lays claim to a “feel good practice” aimed at addressing the neglect
experienced by children of the Global South and, at the same time, promising the “progress
and civilization” associated with the Global North. Martin and Pirbhai-Illich (2015) “argue
that colonial ways of knowing and being, prevalent during the spread of imperialism, are still
privileged in relations between the Global North and the Global South today” (p. 136).
This discussion leads to important points about ethics and the construction of the
ethical subject. Ove (2018) offers:
…the most important implication of the way the practice of sponsorship constructs (or
facilitates the co-construction of) sponsors as ethical individuals is that it aligns with,
and not against, the processes that structure the modern world in all its violence and
inequality. In other words, far from being a definitive solution to the problems of
world poverty, sponsorship is yet another way that contemporary relations of power
are expressed (p. 110).
Embedded in these relations of power are the relative privileged/non-privileged positions of
sponsor/sponsored; in fact, sponsors “are constantly reminded that their comparatively minor
donations have miraculous consequences in the lives of Others” (p. 110). Thus, according to
Ove (2018), “sponsorship not only plays a prominent role in the ethical identity of the sponsor

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but also serves as a mechanism that helps reproduce the categories (such as race, nation,
gender, class) that structure our lives” (p. 110).
6.6 Un-complicated solutions
In defining this sixth problematic in the HEADS UP acronym as “offering easy and
simple solutions that do not require systemic change” (Andreotti, 2012b, p. 2), Andreotti
poses the question of whether the “initiative offer[s] simplistic analyses and answers that do
not invite people to engage with complexity or think more deeply” (p. 2). In later work
(Andreotti, 2016), she rewords the question slightly, asking: “Has the urge to ‘make a
difference’ weighted more in decisions than critical systemic thinking about origins and
implications of ‘solutions’?” (p. 108).
The phrase ‘make a difference’ comes across in many child sponsor testimonials (Ove,
2018), though what is troubling is the belief that one can make a difference (a small win)
without damaging one’s own privileged position. This is what Andreotti (2016) refers to as
the first or second audience orientation and Westheimer and Kahne (2004) as the first level
(personally responsible) citizen. According to Andreotti (2016), focusing on the small win
that CS brings with it is akin to being a member of (at best) the second audience-orientation,
where there is a need to be affirmed as doing good and making a difference without the risk of
“paralysing and alienating” (p. 106). At the same time that CS can be seen as a small win, it is
also very clear that it represents a small loss for those who have (and want to keep) privilege.
In essence, I argue here that child sponsorship has been so successful because it is
operationalized (intentionally) in such a way as to not threaten the sponsor’s existing
privilege.
Even Tallon and Watson (2014), self-claimed proponents of CS, state that the minor
commitment associated with monthly donations has been a key reason for much criticism.
They call for CS organizations to “move people beyond just a ‘donate now’ option to a deeper
engagement with complex issues” (p. 309). However, the key message being conveyed here
in this critique is that if child sponsors were compelled to pursue deeper engagement with the
complex issues of poverty, power imbalance, inequity, etc., they would soon realize that child
sponsorship not only reflects an overly simplistic and uncomplicated solution to a complex
problem, but they might begin to see themselves and their privileged positions reflected in the
actual (re)production of the problem. In other words, their “well-intended interventions might

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circularly reproduce the very patterns that they seek to transform” (Andreotti et al., 2018, p.
14).
As Ove (2018) points out, it is “a complex relationship between Southern poverty and
Northern lifestyles” (p. 74) but that child sponsorship organizations tend to maintain “a
separation, or what might be more descriptively referred to as the ‘Othering’ of poverty” (p.
74). According to Ove (2018), if “the causes and direct solutions to problems of global
poverty are disconnected from the North, [then] the role of Northerners is logically limited to
charitable donations that are typically assumed to be generous for this very reason” (p. 74). In
other words, “for charitable donations to be charitable there is often assumed to be no
connection between, for example, one person’s poverty and another’s wealth” (p. 74);
“systemic explanations of global poverty” (pp. 74-75) which strongly implicate the North are
excluded from “the mainstream discourse on development” (p. 75) and thus this exclusion
serves to ensure that “fundraising is perceived as an appropriate and sufficient Northern
response to global poverty” (p. 75).
6.7 Paternalism
Andreotti (2012b) defines paternalism in the HEADS UP framework as “seeking
affirmation of authority/superiority through the provision of help and the infantilization of
recipients” (p. 2). To identify whether an initiative reproduces this problematic pattern,
Andreotti (2012b) poses the question of whether the “initiative portray[s] people in need as
people who lack education, resources, maturity or civilization and who would and should be
very grateful” (p. 2) for the help. For this final problematic, it seems fitting that I have come
full circle to the introduction of this paper, where I cited a New Internationalist article as
suggesting that the kernel of child sponsorship “is the creation of a paternalistic relationship
which is unnecessary and potentially harmful” (NI, 1985, p. 150). The article in that NI issue
went on to offer:
One-to-one sponsorship does not create genuine personal bonds between donors and
foster children. It can, however, distort the recipients’ vision of an unjust economic
order and create aspirations far removed from the reality of their lives. Children and
their families may be permanently marked by psychological and material dependence
on their ‘padrino’ from the North (NI, 1985, p. 150).

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Once again, as with the self-congratulatory and self-serving problematic, it is difficult
not to draw parallels between child sponsorship and the Sixties Scoop in relation to the issue
of paternalism. Canada-wide, settlers have forgotten the legacy of the sixties scoop and fail, in
most cases, to notice the parallels between that practice of indigenous adoption (removal from
homes and parents) and child sponsorship, especially with respect to its representation as the
savior to the marginalised, highlighting this paternalistic problematic at work. Child
sponsorship, according to Ove (2018), “reproduces colonial relations of power and
knowledge, and it allows for the deterioration of conditions in the South despite the
appearance of enormous efforts in the North” (p. 146).
In concluding this HEADS UP analysis and critique, I would argue that the discussion
and analysis provided here strongly support a claim that child sponsorship “reproduces these
seven problematic historical patterns of thinking and relationships” (2012, p. 2) and, in the
words of Ove (2018), “if one accepts [the critique presented here], there is really no salvation
for child sponsorship” (p. 147).
7. Closing Thoughts on Moving Forward with Justice
To close, I revisit the introduction to this paper, and the one question I was frequently
asked as I shared with others that I was researching and writing this critique: “... but isn’t it
better than nothing?” Ove (2018), in his critique of child sponsorship, also draws on the
phrase “better than nothing,” though in his research he was drawn to conclude that child
sponsorship is better than nothing, even though, he admits, that is about as strong a conclusion
as he is willing to make. Reflecting back on this paper and the complexity behind the
motivations— coupled with a critical reflection on descriptions of the good citizen, the critical
audience member and the HEADS UP pedagogical tool — exposes how overly simplistic this
binary-based question really is. Given my argument above that CS is implicated in reinforcing
the “seven problematic patterns of representations and engagements commonly found in
narratives about development, poverty, wealth, global change, particularly in North-South
engagements, as well as engagements with local structurally marginalised populations”
(Andreotti et al., 2018, p. 15), I am left with the insurmountable task of responding to ‘now
what?’ In other words, the question looms (even on the minds of readers), “if not this, then
what?”

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In light of the theories and analyses presented in this paper, I suggest re-wording the
question “… but isn’t it better than nothing?” to one of the following:
• Does child sponsorship offer the possibility of moving people toward being a
“justice-oriented citizen” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) who is positioned as a member of
the audience oriented toward “education for existence otherwise” (Andreotti, 2016) in
global citizenship and international development education?
• Do child sponsorship organizations encourage and support a critical analysis of
the root causes of injustice and inequity, including “working to alter institutional
structures through collective action” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004, p. 266)?
• Would you sponsor a child if you understood the process as supporting a
condition which potentially “forecloses analyses of uneven power relations” (Andreotti,
2016, p. 105), emphasizes a belief that “people in poorer countries need the help of
Canadians” (Andreotti, 2016, p. 109), and reinforces “stereotypes about ‘children less
fortunate than us’” (Yuen, 2008, p. 11)?
• Would you consider sponsoring a child if truthfully informed that child
sponsorship programs “do not and can never amount to sustainable or integrated socio-
economic development [because they] neither address nor outweigh the many and
mutually reinforcing root causes of poverty at the level of the individual family, …
community, … country, … and international realities” (Eekelen, 2013, p. 474)?
• Is it educationally responsible to advocate for “the pedagogical reduction of
complexity and the softening of edges [in order] to be effective in inviting people into the
conversations where their self-image and world views will likely not be affirmed”?
(Andreotti, 2016, p. 105)
• Are you willing to be complicit in “practices that unintentionally reproduce
ethnocentric, ahistorical, depoliticized, paternalistic, salvationist and triumphalist
approaches” (Andreotti & de Souza, 2011, p. 1)?
• After reading this paper, is it still possible to deny “that economic poverty
heavily subsidises economic wealth… an insight that needs to be denied if we want to
continue to believe we are benevolent, charitable and innocent people ‘helping the poor’,
only fulfilling our manifest destiny of heading humanity towards a future of justice and
peace for all”? (Alasuutari and Andreotti, 2015, p. 65)

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If, as a reader, your response to each of the above questions is no, then you probably
support the argument and final response of this paper. No, child sponsorship is NOT better
than nothing.
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Percentage contribution of each author in the manuscript
Kathleen T. Nolan - 100%