Forgotten Children Worldwide Sponsorships Empowering More Than 500 Children
Ministry fights human trafficking by focusing on prevention
Mallikarjun worked as a child farm laborer in India because his father was visually impaired and unable to support the family. He earned only 60 cents a day, most of which paid for water, electricity, and the interest on a loan he was tricked into signing. He rarely ate more than one good meal a day.
But then Forgotten Children Worldwide (FCW) rescued him. “I thank God for Forgotten Children Worldwide bringing me out of child labor and from the psychological abuse that I was experiencing,” he said.
FCW began in June 1999 when, during a trip to adopt his daughter from Russia, founder Matt Hartsell shared with an acquaintance his vision to start a ministry assisting orphans. Upon returning home, he received a $500 check as seed money.
FCW has grown over the last 24 years and now has a child sponsorship program helping 512 children. Sponsored children receive basic needs, like food, medical and dental care, and education. The ministry works with children in Uganda, Malawi, Nepal, and India.
All of the $38 per month sponsorship money goes to benefit the children—none is used for administrative fees, Hartsell told MinistryWatch. Discipleship is key to everything it does, he said.
FCW is an anti-trafficking group, but its focus is on prevention rather than rescue and rehabilitation. FCW has three pillars for prevention:
- provide for basic necessities so children aren’t forced into labor,
- empower children with education and skills, and
- love children through mentoring, counseling, and Christian discipleship.
The release of the hit movie “Sound of Freedom” has raised interest in the ministry’s work fighting human trafficking, though Hartsell says they’ll have to wait and see if that interest will “translate into donations.”
“It has given us a platform to draw attention to the issue and to FCW,” Hartsell said.
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In a blog post about the movie, Hartsell wrote, “[F]or those of us who have spent much of our life protecting children from trafficking, I have to say that the eyes of the victims were not sad – enough. The hopelessness was not hopeless – enough.”
FCW has been growing steadily thanks, at least in part, to a newly-hired development director.
In 2021, the ministry had over $4 million in revenue, but $1 million is dedicated to a building campaign at the flagship project in Uganda. Kipindi Mpito is a residential facility to help students transition to adulthood, go through discipleship, learn skills such as tailoring, and have the opportunity to move on to college or trade school.
In the MinistryWatch database, FCW earns a donor confidence score of 79 and a three-star financial efficiency rating. Because it recently terminated its membership with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), it earns only a “C” transparency grade.
About the decision to leave the ECFA, Hartsell said it was a tough decision. “It came down to the fact that, in addition to us supplying our Form 990, which we always do and will continue to do, the [ECFA] required a full audit which would have cost us around $20,000,” he said.
“We chose to use those dollars for ministry purposes instead of an audit,” he said.
Main photo: Photo by Roman Nguyen / Unsplash / Creative Commons
