Important FAQs Regarding COVID-19 and Compassion’s Response

As the global coronavirus (COVID-19) situation evolves, the safety of sponsored children, churches, supporters and staff is the highest priority and of utmost concern to Compassion. You can be assured that this decision was not made lightly, and we are also disappointed that the global health situation has impacted trips and visits in this way.

One of the main reasons for the suspension is to limit any potential virus exposure to the children and churches we serve. People in areas of significant poverty with limited health care resources are some of the most vulnerable during crises such as this.

Compassion looks at a variety of factors when assessing the viability of any given trip or custom visit. Regarding the current health crisis, a coordinated, multidisciplinary task force is meeting regularly to understand the risks and mitigation opportunities. This team includes Compassion’s senior safety specialist and representatives from our departments of risk management, legal, international security, travel, trips and visits, communications, global program and others. The team meets regularly to better understand the current coronavirus crisis and make decisions on travel restrictions.

Yes, we have made the difficult decision to cancel all trips and custom visits until further notice.

You should have been notified about your trip or visit cancellation. If not, please contact us at 800-336-7542 option 1 for trips or option 2 for visits.

We are hopeful that sponsor trips and custom visits will resume early next year. However, we are unable to commit to a time frame, as it will be dependent on a thorough assessment by Compassion’s incident response team. We want to ensure travel is safe for all parties involved before booking trips again.

If you would like to be among the first to know when we resume scheduling sponsor trips, let us know.

If you would like to request a custom visit for January 1 or later, you can do so by visiting our website, choosing your visit type and submitting the form. We will contact you when we are able to resume planning for your visit request.

Sponsor trips – When trips are opening for registration, we will send emails to sponsors of children in the corresponding countries. If you would like to be among the first to know when we resume scheduling trips, let us know here. Please also keep an eye on our website, as we will post updates when trips are resuming.

Custom Visits – If you would like to request a custom visit for January 1 or later, you can do so by visiting our website, choosing your visit type and submitting the form. We will contact you when we are able to resume planning for your visit request.

Our top priority is the health and safety of you, the children we serve together, and our staff during this time. We will take any and all precautions necessary to ensure that travel is resumed only after our incident response team has done a thorough assessment of the situation and deemed travel safe for all parties. Since things are changing so rapidly, we don’t know the implications for future trips or visits at this time. Any new measures resulting from the pandemic will be communicated on our website prior to registration so travelers are aware of what actions Compassion is taking to make travel as safe as possible.

Due to COVID-19 we have made the difficult decision to cancel all trips until further notice. Additionally, many Compassion centers and offices are temporarily closed due to COVID-19, and therefore our country staff is unable to arrange trip logistics at this time. Our national office staff is focused on providing critical care for the children in our program during the pandemic.

If you would like to be among the first to know when we resume scheduling sponsor trips, let us know.

Custom visits require a significant amount of planning between our U.S. staff, national office staff, and frontline church partner staff. Due to center closures, our country staff is unable to arrange any visit logistics. Our national office staff is focused on providing critical care for the children in our program during the pandemic.

While travel is suspended, our national offices will not permit any international visitors to meet sponsored children, visit local Compassion centers or visit national offices. Because of these precautions, it will not be possible to drop off a gift for your child at the child development center, the child’s home or the national office. If you are still traveling and would like to mail a gift to your child while you are in-country, please contact us at 800-336-7542 option 2, and we will provide you with the mailing address for the national office.

There are many considerations that go into approving a trip or custom visit to take place. Although travel in the U.S. may no longer be restricted, the ability to travel depends greatly on the presence of COVID-19 in a particular destination country and any restrictions in effect at the local level. We will be looking at trips based on the situation in each specific country and making decisions on a country-by-country basis.

Yes! We will be sure to contact the travelers who were previously registered for a canceled trip and those who have expressed an interest in traveling to that specific country.

You can visit the Compassion COVID-19 web page, where we post details on how Compassion is supporting the children and churches in each of our countries during this time.

Yes, we are encouraging sponsors to give as they are able because your sponsored child needs you now more than ever. Simply log in to My Account to give a special gift that will help provide food, medical care and other essential support during this pandemic.