A Child Left With No One

Somewhere tonight, a child will fall asleep without a parent to check on them. No one to ask about their day, pay for their school books, or make sure they ate. Across Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Rohingya camps, Gaza and Nigeria, millions of children are living through exactly that reality, often after losing a parent to conflict, disaster or illness they had no part in causing.

Orphan sponsorship is one of the few forms of giving that puts your donation directly into one child’s life, month after month, until they no longer need it. This guide walks through what sponsorship actually costs in the UK, what your money pays for, whether it counts toward your Zakat, and how to start supporting a child through Al Firdous.

What Orphan Sponsorship Actually Covers

Sponsorship is not a one off gift. It is a standing monthly commitment that gives a specific child, or in some cases their surviving family, a reliable source of support they can count on. Across the sector, and at Al Firdous, that typically means:

• School fees and supplies, so the child can stay in education rather than being pulled out to work
• Food and nutrition support for the child and often the household caring for them, often alongside our wider food pack distributions
• Basic healthcare, including checkups and treatment when the child falls ill
• Clothing and footwear, particularly for children in colder regions or refugee camps
• Emotional and social support, where local partners provide guidance to children who have experienced loss and displacement

The exact mix depends on the country and the child’s circumstances. A sponsored orphan in a Rohingya refugee camp may need shelter support that a sponsored child in Pakistan does not, while a child in Gaza right now may need trauma support above almost anything else.

How Much Does It Cost to Sponsor an Orphan in the UK

Prices vary across UK Islamic charities depending on the country of operation, local cost of living and how the programme is structured. Broadly, monthly sponsorship across the sector sits between £15 and £60, with pooled sponsorships at the lower end and individual, one to one sponsorships in higher cost regions at the upper end.

What matters more than the headline figure is what stands behind it. A lower monthly cost is only meaningful if it still covers a child’s real needs, and a higher cost should come with real transparency about where the extra money goes.

Al Firdous Orphan Sponsorship: The Details

Through Al Firdous, orphan sponsorship starts from £30 a month, or roughly £1 a day. That covers a child’s core needs in full: school fees, food, basic healthcare and clothing, delivered through partner organisations we have worked with for years on the ground.

We are a smaller, specialist charity rather than a large international one, and that shapes how sponsorship works with us. We are not moving in for a single campaign and moving out again. Our teams maintain long standing relationships in the specific communities we support, which means your sponsorship strengthens a connection that already exists rather than starting from nothing. You can read more about what that looks like in practice in our guide to sponsoring an orphan in Pakistan.

Every sponsorship also sits within our wider work in that community. A sponsored child in Pakistan benefits not only from their own support, but from the clean water projects, food packs and education funding running alongside it in the same area.

Where Your Sponsorship Reaches

Al Firdous currently supports orphan sponsorship across the communities we work in directly, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Rohingya refugee camps, and Gaza, alongside our wider humanitarian work in Nigeria and Greece. You can choose to give generally to wherever the need is greatest, or ask us to direct your sponsorship toward a specific country when you set it up.

Sponsorship in Gaza in particular reflects a much sharper reality than it did even two years ago, with tens of thousands of children newly orphaned since the escalation of the conflict there. Many of these children are now being cared for by relatives who are themselves struggling to survive, which makes sponsorship there less a supplement and more a lifeline.

Is Orphan Sponsorship Zakat Eligible?

Yes, in many cases. Orphan sponsorship can count toward your Zakat where the child, or the guardian and household caring for them, falls into one of the categories of people eligible to receive Zakat, most commonly the poor and the needy. This is something Al Firdous verifies before allocating Zakat funds, so your obligation is fulfilled correctly and not just directed toward a good cause in a general sense. If you have not worked out your Zakat yet, our step-by-step Zakat calculation guide and free Zakat calculator can help you get an accurate figure first.

If you are not sure whether your specific sponsorship qualifies, our team can confirm this for you before you give, or you can give as Sadaqah instead, which carries no such restriction and still counts as an ongoing charitable act.

The Reward of Caring for an Orphan in Islam

Few acts of charity in Islam carry a promise as direct as this one. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, described the one who cares for an orphan as being with him in Paradise like two fingers held together, and he raised his index and middle finger to show exactly how close (Bukhari).

The Quran repeatedly places the treatment of orphans at the centre of what defines a person of faith, warning against neglect and encouraging their protection in the same breath as prayer and charity. Many scholars describe supporting an orphan as one of the clearest examples of Sadaqah Jariyah, a form of giving whose reward continues long after the money leaves your hand, because the effects of a proper education and a stable childhood carry forward for the rest of that child’s life. You can read more about the different ways this plays out in our piece on supporting orphans through Al Firdous, including our recent work providing meals for orphans in Pakistan.

How to Start Your Sponsorship Today

Setting up a sponsorship with Al Firdous takes a few minutes.

1. Visit our orphan sponsorship page and choose to sponsor generally or in a specific country
2. Select your monthly amount, starting from £30, or give any amount that works for your circumstances
3. Confirm whether your gift is Zakat or Sadaqah, so we can allocate it correctly
4. Add Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer, which increases your donation by 25 percent at no extra cost to you
5. Receive confirmation and updates on the impact of your sponsorship over time

You are also welcome to sponsor more than one child, whether as a family, in memory of a loved one, or simply because you want to do more. Get in touch with our team directly if you would like to set up multiple sponsorships or discuss a specific country.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article provides general Islamic guidance based on mainstream UK scholarly opinion. For questions specific to your own Zakat obligation, we recommend speaking with a qualified scholar.