Effect of community participation on performance of child sponsorship programs

Abstract

Performance of child sponsorship programs is critical in determining if the programs achieve the overarching goal of promoting child development. Understanding how community participation influences the performance of these programs is essential, considering that children live within a community context. Child sponsorship programs are designed to support children and youth beneficiaries through one aspect or many aspects of life such as health, education, skills development, talent development among others. This study proposed to investigate the effect of community participation on the performance of child sponsorship using Compassion International as the case study. The core objectives of the research were to determine the influence of community participatory planning on the performance of child sponsorship programs in Kenya, to establish the influence of community resources contribution on the performance of child sponsorship programs in Kenya, and to examine the effect of community participation in monitoring and evaluation on the performance of child sponsorship programs in Kenya. The study used Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation as the guiding theory and employed descriptive research design in research methodology. The target population was project-units team members comprised of project directors and community representatives, who implement the project. The sampling procedure used was stratified sampling where a sample size of 180 out of a total 328 project-units team members was approached to inform the study. A closed-ended questionnaire was used to collect the information from the selected respondents, and it was first piloted with 10 respondents who had similar characteristics to the target population. The questionnaires were then sent to the respondents to self- administer. Data analysis was done by use of Ms Excel and Stata to perform descriptive statistics. The study found that community participation was moderate and that it had a moderate positive effect on the performance of child sponsorship program. The study recommended a deliberate effort to involve the community especially in resources contribution to promote sustainability. Further research should be conducted on the quality of community participation to find its effect on the performance of the program.