When I started working, I made a simple decision: if I was fortunate enough to build a life for myself, I wanted to give something back too.
That was how my sponsorship journey with World Vision began six years ago.
For years, sponsorship was something I experienced from afar. Every month, I made my contribution, received updates, and exchanged letters and photographs with a boy growing up thousands of kilometers away in Mongolia. I knew that my contribution was going towards something meaningful. But until I travelled to Mongolia myself, I don’t think I truly understood what that meant.
When I saw the trip to Selenge happening, I knew I had to make it happen. This trip gave me the opportunity to see firsthand what happens when many small contributions come together—and more importantly, how sponsorship can create change that lasts far beyond a monthly contribution.
Together with 25 other trippers, we visited communities where support from sponsors had helped build and improve schools. We saw toilets and sanitary facilities created for children living in dormitories, giving them a safer and more cohesive environment in which to live and learn.
We visited facilities supporting people with disabilities, giving them a place to learn, develop their abilities and receive the support they need. In Singapore, they are just a stone's throw away. However, this is considered a godsend in the community. We met families who had been given opportunities and resources to develop sustainable livelihoods of their own with one that now owns her own eatery.
I also learnt that creating a better environment for a child goes far beyond physical infrastructure.
Through World Vision workshops and community programmes, parents learn positive parenting practices, while communities strengthen their child-protection mechanisms. The aim is to create safer, more nurturing homes and communities where children are protected, supported and given the opportunity to thrive.
That made me understand the bigger picture of sponsorship.
Supporting a child also means strengthening the world around that child.
It means supporting the family that raises them, the school that educates them and the community that protects them. It means building capabilities so that, over time, communities become stronger and increasingly able to support themselves. The goal isn’t simply to provide help today. It is to equip people with the skills, infrastructure, knowledge and opportunities that allow them to create better lives for themselves tomorrow.
And that is what makes the impact sustainable. Seeing this changed the way I looked at my monthly contribution. $50 can feel like a relatively small amount to us. But when many people each contribute what they can, that collective effort becomes something much bigger. There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. During this trip, I finally got to see that village.
I also got to experience this journey with 25 trippers and volunteers who brought so much thought and passion with them. Everyone came from different walks of life, but there was a shared desire to understand, to contribute and to connect. Seeing not only the dedication of the World Vision field team, but also the generosity and sincerity of the people travelling alongside me, was another reminder that meaningful change has always been a collective effort.
And somewhere within that village was a boy I had been writing to for six years.
His name was Shinebayar. For years, we got to know each other through letters, photographs and little updates from opposite sides of the world. I would see him growing up through pictures, hear about his life and share pieces of mine – but that was basically it. I always hoped that perhaps one day I would have the opportunity to meet him, but I never really knew if that day would come.
Then, six years later, it did. Here was the little boy I had known only through letters, now standing right in front of me, confident and performing for everyone before we sat down to talk to one another. There was something incredibly special about finally meeting someone you had known from afar for so long. For the first time, we could sit beside one another, laugh together and talk about our lives, our dreams and we exchanged presents we prepared for one another. That moment still live rent-free in my mind – it was filled with happy tears and laughter.
Through an interpreter, when I asked which gifts he likes the most, he told me that the most precious gift was that I had come to Mongolia to see him. At that moment, I don’t think I could have been happier to have met a warm and grateful young man with a soft heart, and I realised how beautifully he had grown up.
Before we parted, we exchanged one final letter.
In mine, I told him how happy & proud he has grown, and I had gained a younger brother.
In his, he wrote that he was the happiest boy in the entire hall.
A simple sentence, but it stayed with me & am still emotional even till today.
Of all the things I have done through the sponsorship that could have meant for him, I never expected that simply showing up meant the most – and perhaps also the greatest lesson he gave me in return.
To anyone reading this who has ever wondered whether a small contribution really makes a difference: it does.
I had the privilege of travelling to Mongolia and seeing that difference with my own eyes and the real work World Vision team did. If you can play a part, however small, I hope you will. Because when enough people contribute a little, we don’t just help someone through today. We can help give children, families and entire communities the tools to build a better tomorrow for themselves.
Sometimes, we don’t need to change the whole world. We just need enough of us willing to change one small part of it.
Be a part of the child sponsorship community that transforms the lives of children. Sponsor a child.
