{"id":142,"date":"2007-06-06T12:26:23","date_gmt":"2007-06-06T20:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/?p=142"},"modified":"2011-01-02T13:33:33","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T21:33:33","slug":"sponsoring-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Sponsoring a child"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I decided in February of this year to sponsor a child again. I had done this before, but I had to quit this program when my financial resources prevented me from sending those monthly payments. After my financial resources had improved, I opted to support financially other programs for various reasons.<\/p>\n<p>But this year I decided to sponsor a child again because my financial resources had improved, and this time I felt that I&#8217;m actually able to sponsor a child in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does the long-run actually mean. Recently, I read the article &#8220;Africa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling&#8221; in The New York Times. This article raises a very important factor that needs to be addressed, too, when sponsoring a child. The article points out that over decades basic education had been favored over higher learning, and Africa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best universities are collapsing and becoming more like a warehouse for a generation of young people whose job opportunities in their society are as dim as their uneducated parents.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore I also believe that it is not enough to sponsor a child only through elementary- and high-school education. A long-term approach is necessary to alleviate poverty and increase economic opportunities on the African continent.<\/p>\n<p>I know that I not only want to sponsor a child that will be lucky enough to graduate from basic education, but out of luck attending an acceptable college or finding a job in her struggling economy.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore I decided that I&#8217;m in for the long-run.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/pankratius-door.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-143\" title=\"Pankratius door\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/pankratius-door.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"459\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I decided in February of this year to sponsor a child again. I had done this before, but I had to quit this program when my financial resources prevented me from sending those monthly payments. After my financial resources had improved, I opted to support financially other programs for various reasons. But this year I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,22,20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-sponsorship","category-wellness","category-world-vision"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsareshadows.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}