Keewani Cook used to sit on the bamboo floor and under the coconut leaf roof of her home in the Philippines eating rice with salt. She lived life just like the other children in her community.
Her parents did their best with limited resources but couldn’t afford her schooling. Some days Keewani would go to bed hungry. She lost three of her siblings to treatable medical conditions because her family could not pay for healthcare.
“When you grow up in poverty, you don’t really think about it, because all your friends are poor. All of the community is poor. I thought it was just normal. Sometimes you get hungry—but everybody gets hungry.”
“My sister and I would beg our parents to buy us an apple, even a rotten one, but my parents couldn’t afford it,”she says.
Keewani holds an old sponsorship photo of herself. Photo: Compassion
This was Keewani’s reality for seven years until she began attending a Compassion Project at a local church and was sponsored by an Australian man. Suddenly, a world of opportunity opened up for her— she ate regularly, had access to medical care, went to church, and was finally able to go to school.
Keewani says her family’s life was still hard, even after sponsorship, but most importantly, they had found a way to send her to school and found “their roots in faith”.
Two years later, difficulty in their province led her family to move to Manila, the capital city. They hoped this would help them break free from poverty.
“My parents were adamant they needed good-paying jobs to support us,” she says.
Rents in the city were so high that they moved frequently, but all the while, Keewani was still able to attend school thanks to her sponsor.
Keewani was sponsored from 1986 until she graduated from the programme as a 21-year-old in 2001.
Keewani was given the opportunity to study at university and now works as a physical therapist. Photo:Andre Hunter/Unsplash
She feared university would not be possible after sponsorship because her family did not have enough to pay the fees. Compassion launched its Leadership Development Programme about the time Keewani graduated.
She was selected for the programme, which covered her university fees. Five years later, Keewani was invited to Australia by Compassion to speak about the sponsorship programme.
Before the trip, she prayed that she would meet her sponsor, but her attempts to track him down failed. It seemed so impossible. It wasn’t until the day of the event that Keewani’s prayers were answered.
The president of Compassion Australia asked her onto the stage, saying, “Hey Keewani, what can you remember about your sponsors?” She replied, “I can remember how unconditionally they've given to me, they just kept giving and praying for me. They didn’t have to, but they did.”
At that moment she was told her sponsors were there in the crowd.
“I just ran to them and hugged them over and over again. I told them thank you, thank you so much. You changed my life and my family, and I know that one day my community will change because of what you did,” she says.
Keewani‘s sponsors. Photo: Keewani Cook
Today, Keewani is a physical therapist in Texas where she lives with her husband. She often travels with Compassion to share her testimony.
Keewani sponsors four children through Compassion. She believes she is a living, breathing testament to the fact that child sponsorship works.
Keewani says she lives by a Bible verse she first heard at the Compassion Project in the Philippines. Jeremiah 29:11 is my favourite verse because God has a plan. He has a purpose for my life.
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