In 1990, after a series of punishing droughts, Jose Gualan moved his family from a poor region in southern Ecuador to a shantytown called Lucha de Los Pobres on the outskirts of this capital city.
Eventually, four of the Gualans’ eight children became part of Children International’s child sponsorship program in Quito. For 19 months between 1995 and 1997, 5-year-old Alexander Gualan Ontaneda–the family’s youngest child–was sponsored by a Chicago Tribune reporter who donated $428 in the boy’s name in regular sponsorship fees and extra gifts.
The Gualans say the sponsorship program, which has included gifts such as a pair of jeans and shoes, a small backpack, sweat suit and a set of toys, along with annual dental and medical checkups for each of their sponsored children, has significantly helped their family. A charity-funded summer camp provides escape for the young ones, and a charity-run library is a sanctuary in which to read and do homework.
“This is important for all of us,” says Gualan, a carpenter. “It’s helped us buy other things for our children.”
But to receive these gifts, the Gualans and other residents say, the charity asks them to do things that mystify and disturb them.
Many sponsored families are frustrated because the clothes they receive from CI sometimes don’t fit their children. Charity officials in Ecuador said the clothing is sometimes too large because manufacturers confuse orders and families request bigger sizes so their children can wear them longer.
Some families criticize Children International for requiring their children to “dress-down” when their annual photographs are taken for sponsors. Charity officials in Quito said they do not allow sponsored children to pose in “fancy” clothing for fear a sponsor will get the mistaken impression the family is wealthy and withdraw support.
Then there is the practice of writing letters at the request of the charity.
A couple times a year, the Gualans say, Alexander and his siblings are summoned to a large room with a dozen other sponsored children. Pinned to a wall are scripted letters that the children, sometimes with the assistance of a parent or older sibling, are asked to copy before the note is sent to sponsors.
Residents say the letters sometimes thank sponsors for gifts they have not yet received, describe hobbies or pets they do not have or gloss over personal tragedies.
Local officials of Children International acknowledged that the charity uses a “model” for sponsorship letters but said children can express themselves freely as long as they don’t ask for gifts, discuss politics or write about death and other family problems.
“We don’t want to be beggars,” said Victor Mariduena, the CI’s top official in Ecuador. “The sponsor is helping the child because the sponsor knows the child has needs.”
Also puzzling to the Gualans were the circumstances surrounding the special gifts that Alexander received in 1997 after his Tribune sponsor, curious about the charity’s response, sent two extra $100 contributions on his behalf.
For the first contribution, the charity bought Alexander a combination desk and bookcase, a set of sheets, a pillow and two blankets. Alexander’s mother said her son does his homework at the desk, but the desk is outside their home and is used primarily by a watchman.
A charity employee asked Alexander’s eldest sister, Jenny Gualan, what her parents and brother needed most before purchasing the second $100 gift. Gualan said she told the official that the best gift would be some food for the family.
Gualan says the official told her that they could only purchase a small amount of food and needed to buy something else for Alexander. Gualan says the official, realizing that Alexander was sharing a bed with his siblings, suggested the charity purchase a bed and mattress–though a charity employee says it was largely Gualan’s idea.
Several months later, the Tribune reporter received a letter written by Jenny Gualan expressing Alexander’s joy at finally being able to sleep in his own bed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room in the house to assemble another twin-size bed. It sat unused for nine months until it was moved to another house.
Throughout the Tribune’s sponsorship of Alexander, CI officials in their correspondences described Alexander’s family as living an unimaginably harsh life.
Although the Gualans are poor, and like poor people everywhere they welcome help, they are a proud and industrious family hardly waiting for someone to bail them out.
When a Tribune reporter went in search of Alexander last May, the Gualans were living temporarily in a middle-class neighborhood, house-sitting for an acquaintance.
Their own modest home, where the family had planned to return later in the year, has three small rooms with running water, electricity–three bare light-bulbs–and a dirt floor. It is a typical dwelling in Lucha de Los Pobres, where Children International sponsors about 2,500 children.
The items and services Alexander received from Children International during the last year of his sponsorship would have cost his family about $72, not counting the bed, bookcase and other special gifts purchased by the Tribune.
A Children International administrator in Quito said the charity spends $120 annually on each sponsored child, approximately 80 percent of the regular $144 sponsorship fee, although charity officials declined to provide financial records detailing the cost of benefits.
The Gualans and other sponsored families say they want to continue in the program, despite the frustrations.
In an interview last week, the Gualans said Jenny Gualan and her family have been using Alexander’s bed since December in the extended family’s new home. They expect Alexander to begin sleeping in the bed on a nightly basis when he moves in with the rest of the family in several months.
