To be fully responsible for a child’s global growth, we must go further than fulfilling his/hers primary needs. We must plan an intervention where the various energies present in the environment are co-ordinated, thus promoting children's harmonious growth. These "energies" are primarily the family, where a human being is accepted or rejected, society, made up by the networks a child establishes day by day, society in a wider sense, as constituted by public and private structures.

Last but not least, we find the educational community where a child grows. This community is made up by educators and missionaries taking care of the child.

For a really comprehensive intervention, these elements must all be taken into account. Action must be articulated dynamically, and it must have as a target the many structures surrounding the child, rather than the individual him/herself.

VIS is a founding member of the Italian Committee for Distance Support (CISD – Comitato Italiano Sostegno a Distanza). It has a several year-long experience in distance support for children and their families, by planning global interventions aimed at improving human development. In this way communities in developing countries are made aware of the causes of poverty, they are accompanied through small improvements in the context of social structures, they are helped in requesting funding for development projects and in promptly acting in the most urgent situations. VIS periodically sends to the international donor reports on the human and social situation of the beneficiaries, thus being a safe channel for not seeing money down the drain.

OUR FUNDAMENTAL CHOICES:

• The counterpart is the local Salesian Community, permanently and lively integrated within the territory, with their specific charisma: taking care of the youth, especially of the poorest ones.
• VIS carries out support for a community, for a group of children, even though every single child is reached out individually.
• This is why VIS is available for answering requests from the part of supporters but not for sending personal information or photographs of the individual beneficiaries.
• VIS accompanies each stage of the children’s growth from the moment they are taken from the streets, by organising for them a human space for education, play and professional training, by helping them join the workforce with micro-credit or co-operative schemes.

This is Don Bosco’s and the Salesians’ educational style and pedagogical methodology. It is all made real in distance support projects.

Global planning

The child to be supported through sponsorship, is not an isolated example of poverty in a well functioning context. There are, on the contrary, structural situations that generate a series of injustice, hitting above all the most vulnerable groups.

This is why distance support must be integrated within a globally planned structure, in the attempt to reach the roots of the problem. The major actor of this form of planning is the local community, or we would end up, as it is often the case, by planning in our own realities what is to be done in a poor country.

The local community is constituted, in our case, by the Salesian Fathers and the lay workers living in the area. By living there, they have a comprehensive picture of the local cultural problems, and posses the structures for operating, for better adjusting the intervention to every single case or for responding to emergencies.

This is the reason why we ask the international donor to trust these communities, rather than to depend on a photograph, an address or an information sheet.

Furthermore, our duty is to simplify the work of the missionaries, without adding a complex secretarial burden to their already intense daily work, thus depriving them of part of the energies needed for their activities.

The very legitimate request from the part of a donor, to be sure one’s money actually reaches destination, that it is used for the stated aim, and the donor’s wish to be informed on the progress of the project, are safeguarded by reports with photographical documentation periodically sent to all supporters.

For whoever is able to afford it, it is also always possible to visit the project site and to share a period of time with the local community, working in favour of poor children.

OUR PILLARS

Many agencies engage today in child sponsorship, but our impression is that major differences exist in both aims and methodologies.

Our fundamental principle is to help both ourselves and them to be "human persons": this is not measured in terms of money but with the quality of the action. Here there are our pillars:

1. The main target is us, the supporters. The aim is the creation of a conscience committed, for ethical reasons, to the situation of social injustice, where hundreds of children are born in circumstances of extreme poverty and deprivation of human dignity.

The international donor must be educated and made aware of the interdependence between rich and poor countries, between development and underdevelopment, which often comes underestimated.

Secondly, action must be moved by free solidarity, stemming from the recognition that the human rights of every creature, especially the most disadvantaged, are well above the possession of commodities or the wish "to buy".

2. The main operational objective is to give to the highest possible number of children "equal opportunities" in the access to human development, careful not to create a "privileged" group within the existing environment. This is possible with the creation of all those human and logistical structures needed for a full development of boys and girls.

In order to reach those two objectives:

we ask the international supporter a constant commitment, on a monthly (minimum 25 US $) or annual (from 300 US $) basis for each boy or girl they wish to "support".

VIS, already active with projects in collaboration with the local communities of many countries, directly gives the donations to family-groups or to those responsible for the educational structures wherein the youth are followed. In particular, we back the local Salesian communities that are systematically involved with the poorest and most abandoned youth, and that follow them not only to provide them with food, but also with the medical care, the professional training, the assistance for gaining an employment, as well as with the moments of entertainment and joy.

VIS (Volunteers for International Service) is one of the NGOs qualified by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out activities in:

• Development co-operation for poor countries
• Training and placement of volunteers for periods of two or more years
• "Education to the world" in Italy

VIS is a lay body, that independently accompanies the traditional commitment of the Salesian Fathers, and of all those inspired by the Charisma of Don Bosco working for the development of poor countries.

VIS is already present in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe with projects on: rescue of street children, basic education, promotion of women, professional training, creation of co-operatives and reintegration into the productive cycles.

Distance support for poor children

Distance support cannot be a private or an individual issue, reaching one single person.

We must change the social and economic background that stands at the basis of the disorder, causing desperate situations for millions of families and, therefore, for their children.

This is why VIS constantly joins the intervention on families through single donations, with the structural intervention through more comprehensive development projects, able to reach thousands of boys and girls and give them personal dignity, physical and moral health, professional skills: the aim is to foster development through education.