As a sponsor, you will receive a sponsorship package including a photo and information on your sponsored child. Updates and photos are sent annually to keep you up to date with the progress of your child.

Print and mail/fax in the PDF or Word format application forms below or fill in the form and click the "Send Request" button to contact us immediately via email.

Application Form (PDF)   Application Form (Word)

The Help Lesotho office in Lesotho is overwhelmed by the hundreds of children seeking sponsorship. Child Sponsorship is one of Help Lesotho’s key programs to help orphans, vulnerable children and their families. HIV/AIDS has left over 30% of children in Lesotho orphaned and many more vulnerable to the struggles of daily life, including poverty, disease and lack of schooling. In Lesotho, over 60% of the population is under 24 years of age. The number of orphans in our twinned school network ranges from a 25% to more than 50% of the student population. The need for sponsorship is overwhelming.  Sponsorship keeps these children in school and provides clothes, books and shoes.  The positive impacts of sponsorship on the lives of these children and their caregivers (in non child-headed households) are remarkable.

Willing sponsors pay an extra $65 a year (or $5.40 per month added to your monthly payment for Child Sponsorship, for a Sponsorship/Camp total of $44.15 per month) for their child to attend the annual HL Leadership Camp.

The aim of Help Lesotho is to develop each child.  Providing students with the opportunity to stay in school is the most important factor to their future. Prohibitive school fees at the high school level are so high many cannot go beyond elementary school and are forced to stay at home from the age of thirteen. Uneducated and unemployed, children begin to engage in harmful behaviour.  Teenage pregnancy rates are high; sexual abuse is on the rise. Girls no longer in school are often forced into prostitution, domestic servitude, sweat-shop labour force, tending the sick and premature marriage. Many boys must hire themselves out as herd boys and roam the hills for the duration of their childhood. Un-schooled, un-parented and un-supervised, many become hardened and are outcasts in their communities.

Help Lesotho has four options for donors to cover the cost to sponsor a child.

1.) Pre-authorized payment (direct withdrawal). Monthly amounts of $38.75 (or $44.15/month including Leadership Camp) can be debited directly from your bank account. Pre-authorized Payments Authorization Form to fill out and return with a void cheque to Help Lesotho, Keller Williams Ottawa Building, 610 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa, ON CANADA K1S 4E6.

2.) Monthly payments using a credit card donations through www.helplesotho.ca, via CanadaHelps. Donors can set up scheduled giving of $38.75 (or $44.15/month including Leadership Camp) and allocate funds to Child Sponsorship, and Leadership Camp if applicable.

3.) Annual payment of $465 (or $530 including Leadership Camp) Credit card donations through www.helplesotho.ca, via CanadaHelps. Donors can set up scheduled giving of $38.75 (or $44.15/month including Leadership Camp) and allocate funds to Child Sponsorship (and Leadership Camp if applicable.)

4.) Personal cheque to Help Lesotho, at: Keller Williams Ottawa Building, 610 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa, ON CANADA K1S 4E6. for entire amount of $465 (or $530 including Leadership Camp) for Child Sponsorship.

Sponsors can expect to hear from their sponsored children every few months. In return, sponsors are encouraged to write to their child throughout the year as a way of offering additional support.  This is not obligatory on the part of the sponsor. Experience has shown many life-changing relationships develop through these letters. This relationship building makes a real difference in the child’s feelings of hope and optimism.  Understandably, writing to a child in a foreign country can be somewhat daunting.  It is suggested that initial letters include details on your country and family.  Including photos is also a good way of introduction.

While a generous idea, gifts to a sponsored child is a means of identifying them which can result in teasing. Motivational cards, stickers, pencils and thin writing journals are appropriate ways of acknowledging birthdays and special occasions. Jealousy is a huge problem among those in need.  Children and adults can be very cruel to orphans and vulnerable children. We have witnessed cases where a child has been burned as a result of being helped by a foreigner. For the protection of the child, large packages arriving for children or their family cannot be delivered. Candy and jewellery have shown to cause the most problems. Money of any currency is not allowed to be included in letters

Willing sponsors pay an extra $65 a year (or $5.40 per month added to your monthly payment for Child Sponsorship, for a Sponsorship/Camp total of $44.15 per month) for their child to attend the annual HL Leadership Camp in January each year (250 participants) so that s/he can receive education in communication, HIV/AIDS, gender equity, health and nutrition. Sponsored children meet and have fun with children from other villages through sports activities, drama and singing. Three protein-rich meals per day, as well as snack food during their six day experience build their immune system. It is one thing to look forward to throughout an often difficult and lonely year. The cost covers transportation from their villages, food and accommodation.

"In January 2005 my husband and I decided to sponsor a child through Help Lesotho. We picked this organization because we know it helps orphans not just with school supplies and clothing but also on a deeper level with HIV/AIDS education and leadership training, which we think is the key to the future for all Africans. HL empowers young girls, and that is what will change their destinies, not just helping them with immediate physical needs.

I was thrilled to “meet” [our sponsored child] through HL, who I learned lives in Pitseng and goes to high school there. Her mother is very sick, and her father’s whereabouts are unknown. She was 15 when we started writing and will turn 18 this May.

At first we politely introduced ourselves to each other and relayed the necessary details you need to convey when you are getting to know someone by correspondence. But over the three years our friendship has evolved, as she has told me about exams she is studying for and successes she has had in school, and I have told her about various ups and downs of my life here in Victoria, BC. I send her goofy photographs of my husband and myself on holidays; she sends me delightful hand-coloured drawings. But mostly we just write and tell each other the kinds of things that friends talk about and that we are thinking of each other. It’s a very solid relationship, and I’m extremely fond of Matseliso, even from this great distance and without having ever met her. Her faith in God and her good-natured spirits never cease to impress me; in fact, I’m sure I receive more from her than she does from me. She is a gift in my life, and long after she is past needing sponsorship I hope she will still be a part of it."

Patricia, Victoria

“I consider it a privilege to be one of Help Lesotho sponsors.  I am making a difference in a child's life by providing funds so that she may attend school and receive an education,  this is such a small sacrifice for me. I am called Grannie Lesley by my sponsor child and this is something that touches my heart each time I receive a letter from her.  She writes wonderful little notes full of thanks and news about school. She tells me her marks and how hard she is working to achieve them.”

Lesley, Ottawa

“Remember that when you sponsor a child you not only change a life, you change a family, and a village. The letters you receive will make your heart 'glow' for days, the letters you send just seem so simple and insignificant, until the response arrives! Change a life, it may indeed be your own!”

Joanne, Guelph