http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june/want-to-change-world-sponsor-child.html?paging=off
accessed 2013-07-17
The Hope Hypothesis
Compassion asked me to visit Colorado Springs to present the results of our research. I had an appointment with Wess Stafford, then president of Compassion, a man I had always respected from a distance but now had a chance to meet. His secretary ushered me into his office, where a large wooden skipper's wheel was mounted on the rear wall. It was a big ship to pilot: Compassion sponsors 1.3 million children in 26 countries.
Stafford greeted me with a warm handshake and ushered me into a comfortable chair in front of his desk.
"Your program works," I said.
"I know," he smiled.
"But I am analyzing this data as a dispassionate scientist, not as an advocate of Compassion like yourself," I replied. "We're not just finding positive correlations, but substantial causaleffects from the program—in every country—especially Africa. I'm wondering what is happening here. You're a former academic. I think there is something deeper going on in the program that would interest the greater development community. I need some leads."
"Try hope," he said.
I raised my eyebrows. "Hope?"
Hope is a fuzzy concept for economists. I squinted my eyes. He explained:
For my dissertation, I asked a bunch of kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. Some were Compassion kids, some were unsponsored. There was a little bit of a difference between the two groups. But then I asked them later what they realistically expected to be when they grew up. Here, there was a big difference between the sponsored kids and the other kids. You see, poverty causes children to have very low self-esteem, low aspirations. The big difference that sponsorship makes is that it expands children's views about their own possibilities. Many of these children don't think they are capable of much. We help them realize that they are each given special gifts from God to benefit their communities, and we try to help them develop aspirations for their future.
