Two years ago, a company which I worked for sponsored a child from ChildFund Australia. After seeing what a few dollars could do to the lives of a struggling community, and the joy our company’s sponsor child had from writing and sending letters, I felt compelled to sign up for my own sponsorship. I chose a child from Vietnam – a country which I had visited a few years earlier and had an immediate affinity for.

My sponsored child’s name is Viet. Viet’s family, like much of his community, are subsistence farmers cultivating rice and root crops. Relying on uncertain weather, farming conditions and regularly unclean water to survive. Viet attends a poorly equipped school kilometres from home and lives in basic mudbrick and bamboo home. A tough life many of us could not comprehend.

After a few years working in Sydney, I decided to take off overseas, studying and travelling. My around the world ticket in hand, I departed home excited by the journey ahead – part of which included visiting friends living in Asia and South East Asia. I could not pass up the opportunity to visit Viet and his family while in the area.

After nine months abroad with plenty of great travel experiences in hand, I arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam. I was met by the ChildFund interpreter Duomg and driver at my hostel and we took a three hour, four-wheel drive ride from Hanoi into the Bac Thong Province, staying overnight in Bac Khan before visiting Viet’s community the next day, which meant driving down dirt roads and crossing rivers before arriving at our destination.

Viet’s family were all there, as well as members of his extended family and much of the community. We shared food from their garden and swapped stories with their help of our interpreter. Viet joined us after completing an end of term exam. Hopefully I wasn’t disturbing his concentration. He assured me that he did well. I presented Viet with some pencils and other small gifts which he was very excited to receive.

After a quick tour or the school and the special honor of tea with the school principal it was time to leave.

It was fantastic to see the difference that ChildFund and fellow sponsors are making in the community, as well as the joy from Viet’s family and smiles on all the children’s faces. I am very proud to have a little brother that I can write to, share stories with and support. I feel that I have a greater perspective on life at home and am very thankful for the stability that we have in our lives here in the “lucky country”. It is important to remember that there are many countries and communities in the world that are not so lucky.

For the Hoskins family, a recent holiday to Vietnam was made all the more special by visiting their sponsored child, Hue. The Hoskins’ daughters, Jenny, 11, and Ali, 15, have been sponsoring 11-year-old Hue for the past five years.

“The sponsorship is in their names and it’s paid for by what would be their pocket money, so it gives them a bit of ownership and responsibility,” explains their dad, Dave.

Jenny adds: “We have been writing to her and we wanted to see how differently she lived from us.”

With the assistance of the sponsor relations team in Sydney, the Hoskins arranged to visit Hue as part of their two-week trip to Vietnam. The family were picked up from Hanoi by their guide Phuong, from the ChildFund Vietnam office, and driven about three hours’ north to Hue’s village in Bac Kan province.

The next morning, they visited Hue at her school and were given a huge welcome by around 70 children! For the next few hours they spent time with Hue, her family and the children, singing, chatting and exchanging gifts.

Ali says she loved meeting Hue’s friends and couldn’t believe “the amazing generosity of her family and the community even though they had very little money”.

Afterwards, the family was taken on a tour of some of the ChildFund projects in the area. They were surprised to learn that their sponsorship money had helped provide clean-water wells, toilets, an early childhood centre, a school playground, livestock and irrigation.

“I didn’t know a lot about what was done with the money,” admits Dave. “I understand now it is aimed not so much at the individual child but at the whole community. We were really impressed with what we saw over there. So many kids had ChildFund pencil cases and ChildFund jackets on and that sort of thing. It is pretty impressive that the whole village is being looked after.”

As for what their daughters got out of it? “I think it opened their eyes to the way other people live. And they fell in love with Hue – they had a little sister.”

The Hoskins say they would definitely recommend the trip to other sponsors. “Absolutely,” says Dave. “I think you are only realising half the value of the sponsorship if you don’t make the trip – you send your money off each month and you get a picture and a few postcards and that’s wonderful, but until you get there and see how much it is appreciated and what the money is doing, you don’t realise what you are helping to achieve.”

In fact, the Hoskins were so impressed with what they saw, they have since taken up another sponsored child, Pratima from India, who they also look forward to meeting in the future!