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Baptist World Aid Australia moves to protect children’s privacy in sponsorship process

Geelong, Australia

It’s a process familiar to many of us – approaching an NGO’s stand in a church or shopping centre to see the images of scores of children laid out on a table in a bid to find sponsors for them.

In what is believed to be a first in Australia, however, Baptist World Aid Australia have decided to change the process by no longer showing the children’s faces in the publicly shown photos. Instead, they’re hiding the faces of children awaiting sponsors behind stickers both online and at public events. The children’s faces will only be seen by the sponsor after the sponsorship sign-up process has taken place.

A close-up view of the new way children’s faces will appear on Baptist World Aid Australia’s publicly available material. PICTURE: Courtesy of Baptist World Aid Australia

Baptist World Aid Australia currently oversee the sponsorship of more than 6,500 children in a number of countries across Africa and Asia including Malawi, Uganda, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal.

CEO Melissa Lipsett said the move was aimed at protecting the children involved in the organisation’s sponsorship program.

“This is really about protecting the safety and the dignity of children and young people.”

– Melissa Lipsett

“[Sponsors] will still be able to choose a country; they’ll be able to choose whether they’ll sponsor a boy or a girl and an age range,” Lipsett told Sight. “This is really about protecting the safety and the dignity of children and young people online but also in person because the world has changed and we recognise that unfortunately children’s images can be used in ways that are not good…Because of our absolute commitment to the dignity and the safety of children and young people, we think it’s essential that we make this change.”

The decision to cover the children’s faces in public comes after an 18 month consultation process during which the children who participate in the organisation’s sponsorship programs were consulted along with their parents.

Program staff who worked with the sponsored children were also talked to, said Lipsett, and it was they suggested “they wanted more done to ensure the safety and the dignity and the privacy of children and youth in their communities.”

Comments from the children spoken to as part of the consultation ranged from “I like that there is no difference between the children, no matter how they look” and “Even children with visible disabilities will be treated equally” to “It will help protect children from abuse” and “This will protect children from child trafficking, being easily beaten up by strangers. It will prevent people easily identifying and recognising us”.



“Children do see themselves at danger in these communities and so these are the things that they’ve indicated to us,” said Lipsett.

Australia Melissa Lipsett 020124
Baptist World Aid Australia’s Melissa Lipsett/ PICTURE: Courtesy of Baptist World Aid Australia

Lipsett said the move is just the latest in a 50 year history of making sure that the children in the sponsorship program were “at the centre of their own stories”.

“For some time, we’ve had a range of protocols in place that provide additional layers of safety and dignity for these families,” she said.

“For instance, our child sponsors are not able to visit their sponsored child in community because best practice would say that may make the family feel very vulnerable…The family might feel ashamed that they can’t provide for the child in the way that they would like to and need external help to do that and obviously there is the danger of taking somebody into a community where there are vulnerable children. We haven’t enabled that to happen for a very long time…we certainly encourage a personal connection but that’s through letter writing…”


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The past few years as also seen the introduction of programs teaching the children involved in the sponsorship program about staying safe when online.

Lipsett believes that other child sponsorship organisations in Australia will welcome the discussion around the issue.

“We imagine that it’s a conversation those other organisations will really welcome. So we’re very pleased to be the ones to step out and to spark that conversation.”

Lipsett said further moves may also be coming as the organisation looks at issues such as whether a personal connection, for example, between a sponsored child or community and their sponsor is necessary in all cases.

“We do need to ask the questions – is it important to every local community; is it important to every child? Or is that an unnecessary expectation upon that local family that we may have unwittingly placed on them. So I think it’s important that we keep asking the questions….We’re really excited about helping the sector go on a journey of change.”

~ www.bwaa.co/change.

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