Frequently Asked Questions

We love to share updates directly from the field so you can see firsthand the impact of your faithful support. In the past, we’ve shared letters from local pastors, child development center directors and even the directors of our national offices.

We’re constantly learning and finding better ways to serve you and our field partners. Recently, we’ve heard from both sponsors and our partners in the field that they would love to receive and share more photos and updates from child development centers.

So this year, we decided to gather and share photos, updates and prayer requests directly from the center the child you sponsor attends.

Yes! This past year, we asked each center to share photos along with updates on what’s going on at their center and some specific prayer requests. We received almost 40,000 photos and 20,000 prayer requests!

Note: To protect our local partners, we shared general prayer requests for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Yes! Just like you can give a child or family gift, you can give a gift to their center. The money will go directly to the center and support their biggest ministry needs. Visit this page to learn more or send a center gift.

All photos were taken within the last year.

Sometimes there are hundreds of children and youths who attend a child development center. It would be difficult to obtain photos of every individual participating in activities. Even if the child you sponsor isn't pictured, they enjoy these same activities with the kids you do see pictured. These photos offer you a glimpse of life at the center so you can imagine what it’s like for the child you sponsor to participate in these experiences there.

For the protection and privacy of the children and youths, we have no way to identify individuals pictured in the photos.

We do all our ministry work in partnership with thousands of local churches around the world. Each local church partner offers Compassion programming through a child development center, where Christian staff and volunteers provide love, guidance, personal attention, guided recreation and safety. Children and youths in Compassion’s sponsorship program spend four to six hours a week at their child development center.

Photos and captions were submitted by volunteers, pastors, tutors and staff members at each center. These incredible individuals work hard to ensure that every sponsored child and youth is known, loved and protected. Each staff member and volunteer fills a unique position as they share Christ’s love, uplift communities and nurture sponsored children.

Many of Compassion’s child development centers are in remote areas with limited internet access, making sending photos challenging.

Our local staff members worked incredibly hard to gather and submit content to share with you — something they were excited and eager to do. However, logistics and local circumstances (e.g., poor internet, a busy season at the center) made it more challenging for some centers to share photos. So we’re happy that 92% of our 8,483 centers were able to share photos and updates, but some were still not able to.

First off, thank you! We’re so excited for you to see what life is like in each of their communities.

As you read the webpage with the center photos, there will be a section after the prayer requests with photos of the children you sponsor and links to explore their centers.

Note: The section displays up to two children at a time. If you sponsor more than three children, each time you click on one child’s center to explore, the following webpage will have new links at the bottom showing the other children you sponsor.

Children are welcome to participate in a Compassion-assisted child development center regardless of their faith. Compassion’s program, however, is unapologetically Christian and every Compassion center is connected to a Christian church or ministry. We want children to have the opportunity to see living faith in action, hear the gospel and be discipled in the ways of Christ. But neither they nor their families are under any compulsion to become Christians.

In some of the countries where Compassion works, the presence of Covid-19 remains a concern. Some areas may enforce mask-wearing mandates as a preventive measure against the spread of illness. Compassion’s local church partners follow local guidelines and recommendations on masking.

The quality of the photos may differ as they’re candid, authentic images captured by church staff and volunteers — not professional photographers. Many photos were taken using phones, some of which have lower camera quality. Although the resolution may be low, we hope these images bring you joy and enable you to see more center activities.

Any identifying information about the child or youth and their location in a photo is blurred out for their protection.

Local church partners are encouraged to spend funds on activities that benefit child development. Local relationships could provide discounted rates, etc. Just as children and youth benefit from field trips and activities in the Western context, the same is true in the countries where we work.

Many of these photos were not posed. Children focused on their activities, may have been asked to ignore the camera so that the picture is as natural as possible. For some participants, having their picture taken may be an unusual or uncomfortable occurrence.