What you should
should know
Questions and answers
You have taken on the personal sponsorship of a child in the Third World and come across questions when reading the documents sent to you. You want to write to your sponsored child or give them a gift and don't know how to proceed. You want to cut costs, move house or prepare your tax return. You will find answers here.
We receive reports from various partner institutions that look after our sponsored children that it can be very difficult and time-consuming to gather all the information about a child because documents are missing, the family lives scattered and is often incomplete or the child literally lives on the street. We therefore ask for your understanding if any information is missing from your sponsorship form.
The mail should never go directly from the sponsor to the sponsored child, as this means that it can no longer be checked by Children's Relief Emmaus (and the person looking after the child). Children who grow up on the street are used to begging and occasionally do so in their letters. It does not make sense for them to receive money, watches etc. from the sponsor without us knowing about it. All mail should therefore be sent to Emmaus Children's Aid, which forwards it to the person in charge and the sponsored child.
Unfortunately, postal charges are very high. If you pay your sponsorship contribution or donation at the post office counter in cash into our postal account, Swiss Post charges us CHF 2 for amounts up to CHF 50. You help us to reduce costs:
-
if you have a postal account, you can use it for your transfers, which does not incur any costs
-
by placing a bank order, which is a free service provided by the bank (this requires a private account)
-
by paying your sponsorship contribution - if possible - not on a monthly basis, but on a three-monthly, half-yearly or yearly basis
-
by deciding to donate a larger amount once rather than several small amounts
-
by informing us of your new address after your move.
Swiss Post allows certain categories of senders to distribute non-commercial items to letterboxes with the "No advertising please" sticker. This applies in particular to political parties and authorities as well as charitable organizations such as Emmaus Children's Aid. Thank you for your understanding!
We only use your personal data for internal administrative purposes. Your address will not be passed on to third parties. The data in our database is protected and we strictly observe all legal data protection requirements.
A big thank you to the sponsors who pay a little more than their sponsorship contribution! These additional donations can be used to provide for those sponsored children who have lost their sponsors in the meantime (death, entry into a retirement home, loss of employment, etc.). Emmaus Children's Aid continues to provide for these sponsored children until new sponsors are found for them.
From time to time, generous donors consider Children's Relief Emmaus with a gift or bequeath part of their estate to us. This always makes us extremely happy. Legacies have often enabled us to overcome a financial emergency. By writing your own will, you can express your last wishes without a notary or witnesses. If the place, time and signature are included and everything is written in your own hand, the will is immediately legally valid.
You can find detailed information here.
As Emmaus Children's Aid is a charity, you can deduct your sponsorship contributions and donations from your taxes. To benefit from this tax reduction, please enclose the donation receipt for the relevant tax year with your tax return. You will receive this at the beginning of each year.
The godchildren are very happy to receive letters, photographs and postcards, as this allows them to introduce themselves to their godparents and their surroundings. Please pay attention to the weight of your small enclosures to save on postage.
In correspondence with your godchild, please only include your name as the sender, not your address. Sometimes godchildren give their godparents their e-mail address. Please do not respond to this and do not give the sponsored child your e-mail address.
As it is very expensive to send parcels with special gifts, e.g. birthday presents, it is better to pay a smaller amount into our postal account with the note: "Special gift for the sponsored child ... (No. ...) or their family." We will report the amount to the person in charge, who will discuss it with the sponsored child or their family to find out what is most needed and what will really bring joy. However, we leave it to the caregiver to decide whether they need the entire amount for this particular sponsored child or whether they want to share it with other children in great need.
Christmas letters from godparents that still need to be translated should be received by November 15 at the latest so that we can forward them to the godchildren in good time. Letters that do not need to be translated should be in our possession by December 1st.
Some physically or mentally disabled godchildren are unable to write letters or even their name. However, they can make large drawings for their godparents, which they do with great pleasure and joy.
If sponsored children are physically or mentally disabled, it is often the parents who write their letters for them. If the parents are illiterate, they ask third parties to write the letters. It also happens that healthy godchildren dictate their letters to a "secretary" (older child, friend, etc.) for fun. It can therefore happen that a godchild's letters have different handwriting. If godparents wish this to happen, we will look into the matter on a case-by-case basis.
Organizing the exchange of letters between sponsors and children in the Third World is a time-consuming process. Many different people are involved. The local supervisors, who usually work for free and have a lot of work to do, motivate the girls and boys from the coordinated institutions to write to their sponsors. They collect the letters over a longer period of time, translate them - for example from the Indian languages into English - and send them to us in a single mailing to save on postage costs. When the letters arrive, they are recorded individually by volunteers; the Spanish letters have to be translated into German; then all the letters are read through so that we can respond to special cases and special requests for help; and finally they are forwarded to the sponsors. If a sponsor is responsible for several children, their letters are placed in a collective envelope and only sent three times a year to save on postage costs. It may therefore happen that your godchild's letter arrives late. Please understand this!
The information on the sponsorship sheet is taken from the information provided to us by the partner institutions. We do not wish to change anything, but ask you not to take the information in a judgmental way; the way it is expressed may be somewhat different from what we are used to. As far as the families are concerned, the external and internal circumstances are often so difficult that the parents are overwhelmed with caring for their children. Our main aim is to help improve the current situation of those affected.
Some of the young people who are supported by sponsorships went to school late because they were not registered earlier or had to earn money as part of the family. In certain developing countries, further education is just as important as vocational training here. It is very important that young people receive a good education; this will enable them to provide for themselves and their families later on, stand up for their rights and enrich society.
In many developing countries, even professionals such as teachers, employees etc. earn very little and often have to wait months for their wages. We therefore believe it is important to support the children of such parents with sponsorships.
