Our staff on the ground work with local community leaders, partners, parents, and teachers to identify students who have demonstrated potential and have socioeconomic need. We then interview each student nominated and assess them on a series of questions, including the Poverty Probability Index, to make selections.  Students are sponsored for one academic year and automatically continue in the program if they pass and maintain good behavior.  In addition to direct sponsorship, Education is Power students benefit from our 4 pillars (more info below).

The Sonder Project staff keep tabs on sponsored students and track their progress in collaboration with their school.  We distribute specific materials at the start of each term, and we follow-up with the student, parents, and/or teachers when concerns are raised.  

The Sonder Project’s Education is Power program has 4 key pillars:

1. Sponsorship – sponsorship is the foundation of our program, providing the resources students need to reach their full potential.

2. Mentorship – all students need positive role models in their lives.  That’s why we assign every POWER student a Sonder Project Staff member as their mentor.  All of our staff are professional, host country nationals, who may be the only college graduate our POWER student knows – other than the teachers at his/her school.  As mentors, our staff visit their assigned students at their school on a regular basis and conduct one on one meetings to address current challenges and provide advice and support to overcome them.  

3. Life Skills Enrichment – In addition to supporting students in the classroom, there are many important life skills that can help build character, confidence and understanding outside of the traditional classroom.  Reproductive Health, Career Exploration, Leadership Training, and Study Skills, are just a few of the many topics we hope to support our students around through an annual POWER Retreat held in each country.   

4. Tutoring – additional, focused instruction outside the traditional school day is critical to helping students understand challenging concepts.  We aim to identify POWER students who may benefit from more direct support, and we then work with the school community to arrange tutoring sessions to prevent our students from falling behind.

 The sponsorship component of the program allows for each student to receive the following for one academic year(exact items may vary by country):

• All Necessary School & Exam Fees
• Boarding Fees (if applicable)
• Food Rations (if living independently)
• Textbooks (if required)
• School Uniform
• School Shoes, Polish, Brush, & Socks
• School Bag
• Pencils, Pens, Erasers, Ruler
• Exercise Books
• Washing Soap
• Solar-powered flashlight
• Menstrual pads (if applicable)

A gift of $25/month supports a student for one academic year (or $300/year).

Sign-up to become a sponsor by donation through our Student Sponsorship Campaign.  You will receive a unique, individual student profile for each student you sponsor in December.  The school year itself runs from September – July (Malawi) and October – July (Burkina Faso).  We seek to receive all sponsorships by September so we can maximize our selection process for the year, and then we distribute profiles in December to allow us time to process this information.

We currently seek to sponsor at least 200 students per academic year.