Sponsor children to send them to school in Sagay, Philipines
Sponsored children: 6 of 10
The Context
The Sagay program was set up on the initiative of the parish of Saint Joseph, located in the middle of the sugar cane plantations on the outskirts of the small town of Sagay, in the north of Negros Island.
Sugar cane dominates the landscape of this region of the Philippines. Small villages of agricultural workers settled on land belonging to large farms, the “haciendas”, whose owners are descendants of Spanish colonial families. In addition to being physically demanding, the work is very poorly paid, and poverty is rife in these isolated villages.
This program was set up to help some of the neediest families in some of these villages, as well as other families in the town of Sagay.
The Team
The Sagay sponsorship program is a parish program, so it’s run by a small team of active parishioners. Ate* Helen and Ate Riz are two are teachers at Saint Joseph Primary School, the elementary school under parish management as well. The sponsored children attend this school, which offers a better quality of education than the public schools, which are often overcrowded. Ate Racel is in charge of the accounts, and also works on the parish’s social projects.
Last but not least, this small team is coordinated by Father Buena, a very young priest, himself from a very poor family, who is very involved in the social role of the parish and the diocese in general. In his former parish, during his diaconate, he set up a participatory aid system based on an initial donation of chicks to the poorest families: by collecting eggs, they were soon able to generate income for both the families and the parish! In addition to helping with schooling, the same system has been set up for the families of your sponsored children.
*in Filipino, “Ate” means “big sister”, a qualifier often used to mark a mixture of respect and familiarity
The Program Today
The program opened in June 2025, and includes a dozen sponsored children ranging from primary to secondary school. Primary school pupils study in the parish school at Saint Joseph. This transfer from the public sector has a twofold objective:
(1) to provide better support for young people
(2) Relieve congestion in public schools, which lack infrastructure and often find themselves with up to 60 pupils per class!
However, this school does include registration fees. As sponsorship alone does not cover the cost of enrolment and the sponsored child’s other educational needs (school supplies, transport, etc.), a group of more affluent parishioners take on the cost of enrolment. The support of your sponsored children therefore depends on a superb network of solidarity, in which each person is indispensable!
Middle school students study in public schools, the closest to where they live. These schools have no tuition fees. Every month, we organize a meeting with all the sponsored children to share, play and, in some cases, take part in training or service activities. It is also at this time that they receive their sponsorship, in the form of school supplies and uniforms at the beginning of the year, and amounts allocated to school transport given to the family. Some of this money is also used to buy food for their school lunches. Your help is truly essential!
Your Sponsorship
Your sponsored children are part of a program. This is a group of sponsored children from the same geographical region. The management of the program is entrusted to the program manager: a local volunteer manager, often Filipino, who is responsible for the day-to-day running of the program: monitoring the young people, distributing the sponsorship money, organizing meetings, etc.
Sponsored children in Sagay are chosen on the basis of various of criteria, but primarily on their financial circumstances (i.e., family income, parents’ occuptation, and state of the house). Children of the Mekong also looks at the young person’s family situation (parents separated or deceased, number of dependent children, etc.), as well as their motivation and that of their family to pursue their studies. Whether it’s to become a teacher, engineer or social worker, each of the program’s sponsored children undertakes to invest in their studies until the end of their university course. At the same time, Children of the Mekong is committed to supporting them both financially and in their personal development, to help them grow into men and women with strong moral character.
Your Sponsorship
Your sponsorship is essential to cover all the sponsored children’s schooling needs. It is used to pay school fees, school materials, projects, books, uniforms, shoes and transport if necessary. It can also be used to help other children in difficulty who do not yet have a sponsor, or to support the family in its basic needs (food supplements or purchase of medicines). The sponsored children’s education is at the heart of our action, and their success also depends on their peace of mind.
Through your sponsorship, we can work together to uplift their rural villages out of poverty by supporting children from Primary to Higher Education. Our programmes approach their sponsorship holistically, supporting them materially and pastorally, in order to position them for success.
