New sponsorship programm “START into LIFE”

Are you wondering what our children do after school? Our first sponsored youngsters have written their final exams in December last year, meaning they have finished school now and with that we start a new project: The sponsorship program ``START into LIFE``.

How the program works

With this new project we enable the young people to receive a monthly sponsorship of 45 € for up to 5 years. These 45 € will not be given directly to the children, but will be put into a kind of savings account for them. The money has to be spent for career-enhancing purposes, such as attending a university or technical college, purchasing equipment in case of self-employment, costs for an apprenticeship or similar things. Like all our projects and campaigns, the focus should be on helping people to help themselves. Our graduates can apply for “START into LIFE” already during their last school year and the decision about the support will be made by Lea, Bonface and a coach on site. This means that a “letter of application” must first be submitted in order to participate in the program. This should indicate the motivation for participation and sponsorship. This letter should be written by the graduate him/herself, in order to show personal motivation. The decision process will then take into account the “letter of application” and an interview with the coach. This process is a first step to show the graduates how an application process works.

Sponsors are then sought, although there is of course an opportunity for sponsors to continue to support the child they have already enabled to attend school. Once a sponsorship is established, direct support begins. In the first year of support, the graduates work for ULT, which means they are present at events and outings for updates and, for example, provide tutoring for younger students. During this time, they save up the 45 € per month and have regular meetings with our coach in which the following points are addressed:

  • Future plans and career aspirations
  • Dealing with the sponsorship money
  • Time planning (how long must be saved to start an apprenticeship, for example)
  • Possibilities to shorten the time through external scholarships or internships
  • Determination of goals

Help for self-help

If an apprenticeship, study or self-employment is pursued, this will be individually supervised by our coach and this support will continue as long as needed. In addition, younger graduates will be supported by older ones in the future. In this way we want to ensure that help for self-help is guaranteed and that an own network can develop. After a successful start into life, the young adults are sent off with a graduation ceremony and receive a certificate that they can attach to their CV. With this continuing sponsorship program, we are linking directly to our school sponsorship program and are thus coming a little closer to our great goal of enabling the children to lead an independent life outside of poverty and the circumstances in the slum.
“START into LIFE” is a new ULT project, which requires a lot of work and needs to be communicated well, especially in the beginning. As already announced in our Newsletter in February, we are working on improving our structure in order to do justice to this work. Our dear Annika finished her bachelor thesis in March and was now visiting Lea in Berlin for several days to start this process. We will keep you posted!

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