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I have been sponsoring children with Compassion since 2001.
I received TWO letters on Friday from a child I have sponsored since 2003. Both letters were dated the same date, both claimed to be from "my" child and yet... they had different handwriting!!! On one of them, "my" child has SPELLED HER NAME WRONG. Really???
For years I have defended Compassion from those who told me it was a scam. I am truly heartbroken to feel I have been duped.
I e-mailed Compassion privately, requesting a telephone call regarding this issue prior to this posting.
They have not responded.
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Posted 4 years ago
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I'm so sorry! I am not with Compassion, but I wanted to offer a perspective on what might have happened. Do your child's letters get translated? It sounds as though it might have been translated twice - perhaps once even as a training experience or a test for a potential translator. This is the only explanation I could think of why this might happen.
Or, I suppose, depending on where you sponsor, it might be similar to a situation I had. I had a girl in Uganda whose name was "Medius". Imagine my surprise when after she graduated, I learned (from Facebook"that her name was really "Mirius". It had been recorded incorrectly when she was first registered, and so she changed back and forth between names her entire time in Compassion!
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God Bless
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Hi, Kelly.
I'm just another sponsor and while I have no doubt in what the original poster experienced, I'm sure that there's a completely sound explanation for whatever happened such as what Kathy suggested above. I can guarantee that Compassion is a wonderful organization. I've been fortunate enough to have traveled to meet some of my sponsored children and can speak personally for the great work the organization is doing.
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I will post an update when I receive an explanation.
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Another thing I saw while there is that all of my girl's letters had been painstakingly copied by hand by someone else into her records! So for the duplicate letter, it could be that someone for some reason thought that the first one had been lost and decided to write out another copy themselves (with their own writing and bad spelling.).
In any organization you have people who make decisions, good or bad, with poor intentions or good ones. Stuff happens, but meeting my kids who looked just like their photos and who had personalities that matched their letters (always in the same writing except for that one time) was enough for me.
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But I have spent a ridiculous amout of time studying Compassion. I don't think for a second that it's a scam or that there is anything that isn't "on the up-and-up". You have been a sponsor longer than I have. I know you must care about "your kids" and I pray that you don't give up on them. Maybe the fact that we get frustrated or angry indicates we care.
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I am posting them both here (with my name and sponsor information covered).
Both letters contain my full name - first, middle initial, and last on the first line.
The letters are dated the same and arrived in two separate envelopes 2/20/2016.
They do NOT contain the same content, they are two different letters.

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KristenH, Champion
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