World Vision would like to emphasise that in many of the countries in which our sponsorship program operates, there is often not the same cultural emphasis placed on a child's birth date as we are accustomed to here in Australia.
In addition, it is possible that parents of some of the children are no longer alive or are estranged for various reasons, making precise birth details more difficult to obtain.
There may also not be a formal process of registering births and therefore no supporting documentation, a situation that World Vision actively seeks to change as a means of establishing citizenship and protecting children's rights.
World Vision therefore is unable to guarantee the precise dates of birth of our sponsor children, particularly the day and the month, and that the dates shown need to be considered approximate.
It is possible then for a supporter to be advised of a change to their sponsor child's date of birth during the period of their sponsorship where new, more accurate information has been obtained.
We appreciate that for some supporters this can be disappointing and perhaps difficult to understand and we trust that, should this happen, the above information will help provide some background as to how this can occur.