Individual Sponsorship

World Vision Sponsorship Programme places continual emphasis on the role of the individual sponsors. As appendices 2 & 3 show, there is some doubt about the authenticity of some sponsorship arrangements although many of these programmes are successful and totally authentic.

The following item appeared in World Vision quarterly (Winter, 1973) reporting on a successful sponsorship:

"World Vision Director, Gene Daniels, decided to appoint him (Diati Ketut) to a position in the World Vision recording studio in Malang. This March he was fare welled from Indonesia by the Far East Broadcasting Company in Manilla.

But for a sponsor who cared, Djati Ketut might be helping his father tend cattle or plant rice. Thanks to that sponsor he may grow up to be a leader in his chosen field."

We ask whether helping one's father tend [unclear: gattle] and plant rice is so bad, and how will this example of sponsorship help the long term development of that community?

The strongest objection to individual sponsorship is that individuals are plucked out of their families (Most World Vision Children are not orphans), go to a Christian, Westernised institution for three quarters of the year; and then return home Since the family itself is unlikely to be Christian and is living in a subsistence Asian agricultural situation, the child's habits and attitudes are certain to clash with his home environment. Upon reaching a certain age, 90% of the children must return to their own villages and fit back into their village community.

Then problem of trying to impose a programme of individual sponsorship upon a community which favours a socialist mode of development are obvious, and have already been dealt with.

World Vision's concept of development through westernisation has not gone uncontested. The Rev. John Atkinson, State Secretary of the NSW Methodist Overseas Mission wrote.'

"The whole concept of out relationships with people of overseas countries, I believe has to be examined in terms of justice and freedom. Any token contribution or even-any dedicated sacrificial giving unless it is accompanied by the possibility of equal opportunity perhaps frustrates people rather than giving them freedom. The fact that a western-orientated society uses local people in overseas situations may not necessarily mean that local people are free to decide policy. Rather local people are forced to fit into the introduced concept. It is extremely difficult for persons and systems to adapt themselves to other cultures and I hold a fear that people under this kind of influence are separated from their own and run the risk of losing their true identity. I feel that identity is discovered at the point where Christian experience relates directly to one's environment and not in a sheltered atmosphere which is introduced from outside the system, which because of its financial position holds a great deal of authority."

World Vision's desire to impose Western values on the Third World countries is epitomised by a comment made by April Hersey in World Vision magazine (Autumn, 1973) when referring to the organisation's aid scheme in Vietnam:

"If only the programmes begum by WV can continue, there will be no shortage of intelligent human beings to carry on the tradition of a Christian country, born, though it may have been, in the horrors of war."

Her comments indicate World Vision's perpeptual effort to link developments with evangelism. Although Vietnam is not yet a Christian country, it would appear that World Vision is making every effort to transform it into one.

World Vision has been extremely successful in soliciting sponsorship for individual children from New Zealanders. While the emotional gratification derived from personal contact does have benefits from a fund-raising point of view, it can impede long-term development. World Vision has officially recognised the need for attacking the root causes of poverty and dealing with whole communities; yet its aid schemes seem to be geared towards producing an indigenous elite. We believe that the New Zealand Public Deeds to be educated towards supporting a non-western way of life; and that World Vision should be encouraged to shift its emphasis from individual to community orientated aid.