“The Power of One” – The Story of a Former Sponsored Child (and her Sponsors!)

I recently had the opportunity to host a World Vision former sponsored child, ‘Teriano’, in Winnipeg as part of the launch of a documentary (‘Babies’) in partnership with its distributor, Alliance Films. 

It was an inspiring 24 hours, as I heard Teriano share her story with our World Vision team, to those attending the event, and to various media.  Here is one of the articles that came from our 24 hours together (I have also included links to a radio interview below) - a day that has inspired me further about the importance of having a global mindset, and of the ‘power of one’….

The Power of One

By: Marlo Campbell (Winnipeg Free Press, excerpt)

If there’s a take-away message to be found in the award-winning French documentary BABIES, it’s that all human beings are basically the same, regardless of where we’re born or the conditions in which we’re raised.

Watching a year in the life of four adorable babies living in four very different environments — the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, the remote Mongolian countryside, neo-hippy urban San Francisco and a small tribal community in the Namibian desert — this couldn’t be more obvious.

Yet sometimes I think we forget this. Just as a baby is a baby is a baby, all of us are the same, in that we all deserve love, dignity and the opportunity to grow into our potential.

The event’s theme was education and the difference it can make in a child’s life. One of the guest speakers was Teriano, a young woman who grew up in a traditional Masai village in Kenya. (Teriano) was sponsored through World Vision by an Australian couple when she was about four, and was one of the first kids in her village to attend school.

The experience profoundly changed the trajectory of her life. Traditionally, girls were valued less than boys in her culture, she explained, leading struggling families to marry off their daughters as young teens for the dowry payments they’d receive in return. This was supposed to have been Lasancha’s fate. Instead, she went on to become the first girl in her community to go to college.

Now in her 20s, (Teriano) has been living in Toronto for the past three years, where she’s studying…at Ryerson. On a recent trip home, she was able to build her family a house and buy her father some livestock.

She spoke about what she called “the power of one.”

“If you can touch one life, that one life can touch others,” she said.

“I was the one sponsored, but that impacted my brothers and my community. My family changed. The perception of women in my community changed.

“Don’t say ‘I’m only one person, what can I do?’ You can do something — and that something you can do? Do it.”

More than 500,000 children in 48 countries are currently being sponsored by 465,000 Canadians, a number that includes 17,874 Manitobans and 9,971 Winnipeggers.

Born into circumstances beyond their control, they’re living in very different conditions than we are here in Canada. They’re also just like us.

You can learn more about child sponsorship at https://children.worldvision.ca/sponsorship/Forms/Child.aspx?lang=en&mc=3732732

Original article:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/column/The-power-of-one-100990259.html

Radio Interview: IGNITE 107 FM:  http://www.ignite107.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1780&Itemid=215 

Trailer for the movie, “Babies”, available August 31, 2010 on DVD: http://www.alliancefilms.com/en/34/trailers/letter_search/0/default_high/B/0/