Child Selection Criteria

A word to pastors: These children are required to either already be attending your church or start attending it while on scholarship. Thus, the child needs to live in a place where they can easily walk to your church and to school. A good way to handle this scholarship is to announce it in your church regularly and spread the word in the community that the church offers it. Then don’t stress yourself out trying to find them. If you don’t find qualified orphans in or around your church, don’t worry. Just keep the scholarship in mind and announce it regularly so it’s available when someone needs it. Also, as explained below, this may be a good evangelistic tool.

Also, this scholarship is a seed to inspire your church to be generous to the poor. Thus, as with our Widows program, the pastor needs to preach a message to the church and encourage them to participate in helping orphans in whatever ways God allows. We want to see reports of how the church is getting people to give. What is received can be used in whatever way the pastor and elders decide to help other poor orphans or add to what we give to help the same orphans. It can even by medication or clothes or food, or whatever to support any orphans in the church who have a need.

There are two types of children that can be selected. First, children who are already in school at the time of selection but have serious financial struggles and perhaps are being kept in school and owing debt or otherwise will drop out soon. The key is that they are in school. Second, children who have dropped out due to lack of tuition and have been out of school for some time more than half a year. This second type also includes children who have passed the age of entering class 1 in primary school because there was no one to help them, or have finished primary school and stayed out one year or more.

Each pastor/church can have up to five children sponsored. Of the five children, up to five can be dropped out children while only up to three can be children already going to school. The total number sponsored can be either one or the other or a combination of both.

General Criteria for all Children

These criteria apply for both dropped out children and children who are already attending school at the time of selection.

1. The child must be an orphan. Either one or both parents must be deceased. Complete orphans (both parents deceased) are preferred over partial orphans (one parent still living). In case of partial orphans, the living parent must not be able to provide basic care for the child.
2. The child must not have anyone in their family who is able and willing to assume responsibility for their education and upkeep.
3. Children who have taken the ordinary level before meeting SD are not qualified. However, we can help those who are already with us until they complete high school.
4. We don’t sponsor children to attend nursery school unless it is required and must be pre-approved. We only help students attend primary, secondary, or high school.
5. A student can only repeat a class once. If they fail after taking the same class for two years, the student automatically drops out of the program. The church must constantly remind students who are not performing well of this.
6. The child must either be attending your church or promise to start attending it to get the scholarship. The child doesn’t have to be a Christian to be eligible. However, he/she must attend your church regularly and be involved in all age-appropriate discipleship programs that the church recommends. We carefully select the pastors we partner with. We want them to pay special attention to disciple these orphans through their churches. We also want to use this scholarship as an evangelistic tool. Pastors can announce it for people in their immediate community. Any child who meets the other requirements and promises to start attending the church faithfully can qualify. Perhaps, not only the child will then come to church, but relatives may come too. We want the children to see the church as their father/sponsor and volunteer from time to time to serve the church as needed (in ways that don’t affect their education and their service to those with whom they are living). Thus, children who are attending another church do not qualify unless in situations where the partnering pastor is overseer of several churches. In those cases, the student can come from any of their several churches. When children are coming to your church, you’ll know when they haven’t been coming to church and if they are attending the youth group or any other discipleship program you have for young people. Students who violate this requirement should be dropped from the program. NB: This criterion that the child must attend the church goes hand in hand with the implied promise from the pastor that he will evangelize or disciple the child and help them know the Lord through the church. Thus, by giving this scholarship to a child, the pastor and church are saying they’ll be shepherding the child (if they are believers) or sharing the gospel with them (if they aren’t believers).
7. The kids should be healthy when they are accepted. In the ideal scenario, a doctor should perform a physical examination to certify the child’s health status. However, when that’s not feasible, a history of no prior significant illness would suffice.
8. To avoid conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety, the child shouldn’t be a relative of the pastor or church elder. Exceptions to this rule must be obtained in writing from Shaping Destiny in cases where the child is related but still very needy and otherwise qualified.

With the above general criteria, pastors and elders can select up to three children and receive sponsorship.

Criteria for children already in school (up to three children per pastor)

As explained above, each church/pastor can have up to five children. Of the five, up to three can be children already in school. The total number of children could include some combination of both dropped out and children who were in school.

1. No more than one child can be selected from one family. Family is defined as having the same mother or father. This criterion is waived for special drop-out children (see below), allowing us to help more than one child per family.
2. Two or three church elders must agree that the child should be helped. That’s the pastor plus at least one other elder should agree.
3. The pastor and elder should pray and believe God will be most served at that time by that child being helped.

Criteria for special drop out children (up to five children per pastor) 

As explained above, each church/pastor can have up to five children. Of the five, up to five can be dropped out children.  The total number of children could include some combination of both dropped out and children who were in school. Special drop out children are defined as follows:

• Children who aren’t already going to school at the time they are selected for lack of the means to do so. For example, a child who is seven years or older and has never gone to primary school at all because the parents have died or single mother can’t afford to send them.
• Children who dropped out of primary or secondary school because of the death of a sponsor. To meet this requirement, the child must have dropped out for at least for the greater half of an academic year and will be coming back to repeat that class not because they didn’t perform well but because they didn’t attend school enough to do well the previous year.
• Children who graduate from primary school (class six) and have stayed home for an entire year because there was no one to send them to secondary school qualifies as a drop out for this section.

In addition to the general criteria, the following criteria apply to special drop out children:

1. We can help more than one child from one family. While there is a limit of one child per family for children that are currently in school when selected, there is no such limit for children who meet the criteria for dropped out children.  We’ve helped four children from the same family before who were all dropped out.
2. The pastor and elder should pray and believe God will be most served at that time by that child (or children) being helped.