Who's Who at ChildFund
Lee McDonnell
Sponsor Services Administrator
Lee is well known to many sponsors having worked at ChildFund since 2003. One of our longest serving staff members, Lee knows the answers to most questions posed by sponsors and staff alike.
What does your role at ChildFund New Zealand involve?
As the administrator I’m the link between our database of children overseas and the New Zealand office. When the child profiles arrive here I check them and manage them - such as getting them ready to put on the website. When there are changes to the project details or the child’s status I inform sponsors.
When sponsors have questions about their sponsored child, I will contact our field office to make the inquiry on their behalf. This can take a while because of the remote locations that children live in so I end up talking to sponsors quite a lot to keep them informed of progress and have got to know a number of sponsors well.
I also support our New Zealand office staff - the question from work colleagues that I get asked most often starts with “Lee, how do I…?”
What got you interested in working for ChildFund?
I had worked in childcare and been a nanny when I was younger so I have an affinity for children. Before I joined ChildFund I had been travelling in Asia and seen a lot of poverty. In Nepal there was small boy who must have been about five years old. It was freezing cold and all he had on was a long shirt. He was struggling to carry a bucket of water and I remember having to bite back a sudden rush of tears.
When I moved home and then up to Auckland, the first job interview I had was with ChildFund and they pretty much offered me the job on the spot.
You sponsor two children, right?
Yes, a little boy called Armando from Ecuador who I got to meet in 2008 when I went there for work. And last year I started sponsoring Moses from Emali, Kenya.
Moses featured in one of our ads and we got to see the ad in the office before it screened. The team were talking about how we needed to find a sponsor for him because he was so unwell. I could see how desperate his life was and I put my hand up. I’m so proud of him now - he’s looking so much better.
It’s amazing what our support can achieve. Although I shouldn’t be surprised. I remember visiting a colleague’s sponsored child in Kenya in 2004. She was an orphan girl who looked so very sick when I met her. Well, she’s 17 years old now and doing well.
What the best thing about working for ChildFund?
The personal satisfaction of knowing that we’re helping in some way. We’re so far away but we get reports and see what’s been achieved. And for me seeing how well Moses looks to what he did. And because the people here at ChildFund are a good bunch of people - like family.
What’s the hardest thing about working for ChildFund?
One of the saddest jobs I have is telling a sponsor that their child has died. It doesn’t happen often - we get maybe 10 deaths a year - but it happens. Many sponsors consider their child like an adopted son or daughter so it can be devastating to lose them. Deaths are often the result of malaria, respiratory or diarrhoeal disease and accidents - this is despite our best efforts. What I am sure of is that without our sponsors many more children would succumb.
What is your hope for your own sponsored children?
Personally I want to see my sponsored children get an education because I know how important it is for their futures.
When I visited Kenya I caught a taxi from the airport to the national office. It turned out that the taxi driver was a former ChildFund sponsored child. He expressed his gratitude for being sponsored and educated as he was now a married man with his own children and he was able to provide for his family.
I can’t give my sponsored children much but I want the best for them - I want them to grow up happy.
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