Plan International is a charity which enables people to sponsor children in third world countries. The minimum donation is £12 a month, but a lot of people give more than this. When you sign up, you can say if you would prefer to sponsor a boy or a girl, and which part of the world they are from. I sponsor a 9 year old girl in Uganda, having travelled there last summer. I write to her and am planning on sending a small present for Christmas, but from the end of the year you can't send presents to your sponsor children to make sure other kids don't get jealous. I think most of the children who PLAN work with live in Asia, Africa, and South / Caribbean America. The ...  Read the complete review

Doreen was 9 years old when I first "met" her and her family. This coming May she will be 16 ,unmarried and will soon leave school. Her mother was 12 when Doreen was born, and destined to toil alongside her husband for the rest of her life trying to produce the crops which will feed them - although they rarely grew enough. The 4 children of the present day family would have been expected to help in this never- ending struggle. They would walk 5k backwards and forwards to collect water for family consumption, the crops and a couple of scrub cows. Since the grazing is poor, the cows would have to be tended by a child moving further and further away from ...  Read the complete review