Sassy Supports: Christina Noble Children’s Foundation

This edition of Sassy Supports is for an organisation that I hold very close to my heart. My own family and family friends have been involved with the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation for over ten years, and over the past year I’ve formed an even more personal connection with the organisation through their sponsorship programme. Find out more about what the foundation is, what it does and how you can also get involved below!

What is the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation?
The incredible story of how the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation began starts with the lady herself, Christina Noble. Born into a life of poverty in Dublin, Ireland, Christina’s tough childhood made her feel a close affiliation to many of the children she met and saw when she visited Vietnam in the 1980s. Her overwhelming desire to help the many children she encountered who were suffering led to the official founding of the organisation in 1991. In 1997, the work of the foundation was extended to Mongolia, and continues today to help underprivileged children and those at risk of commercial or sexual exploitation.

What do they do?
With operational centres in Vietnam and Mongolia, this grassroots charity aims to give children the basic human rights and childhood that they deserve. They provide shelter, schooling, medical assistance and social and employment opportunities to children of any age that don’t have access to these most basic and fundamental rights. There are also special projects aimed at community development, healthcare and education set up in both countries (find out more here).

How can you help?
There are a number of ways to get involved and support this foundation; through a direct donation, by ‘fulfilling a wish‘, by fundraising, volunteering or donating gifts in kind (see all the ways you can contribute here). You can also be a part of the sponsorship programme, which is how I became involved with the foundation…

Over a year ago I applied for the sponsorship programme, where every month you donate $245 (HKD) to a child from an impoverished background that the foundation supports. This small amount contributes towards the financial stability of the sponsor child and their family, assisting with educational fees, medical fees and general living costs. There are so many children waiting for a sponsor and I can honestly say that I don’t even notice the money leave my account every month.

The impact of this contribution really hit me though when I was actually able to visit the child I was sponsoring and his father in Vietnam. Despite being closed on the weekend, the foundation organised a meeting between us at their centre in Ho Chi Minh. I felt slightly nervous beforehand, but it was an incredible experience meeting him. The staff member at the centre mediated our meeting, translating from Vietnamese to English, and she couldn’t have been more helpful and made us both feel at ease – I was so grateful. Hearing first hand from him and his father and learning more about how they lived made me feel a much closer connection to what the foundation is doing and where my contribution was going, and it is a memory I’ll always cherish. To find out more about sponsoring a child, visit the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation website here.

Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, www.cncf.org.hk