‘So Powerful’: Jonathan Roumie On Sponsoring African Children Through Catholic Charity

In 2023, Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie formed a partnership with Unbound, a Catholic child-sponsorship charity, in order to provide financial assistance to the organization’s one millionth child. Emelyne, a young girl who lives in poverty in Rwanda, was the recipient of this assistance.

After exchanging letters and engaging in virtual communication for a period of one year, the two finally met in person.

It’s hard to put into words how terrible it was to meet Emelyne that she was. “You have a concept going into these encounters, from the photos from the letters — and then to see her in person,” Roumie remarked in a video that was released by the Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie. Roumie pays a visit to Emelyne and her family in Rwanda. Thank you to Unbound.

Roumie, who is most known for his portrayal as Jesus in the critically acclaimed television series The Chosen, recently travelled to Rwanda and Tanzania in order to visit Emelyne and Ibrahimu, whom Roumie has been sponsoring since 2019.

In 1981, Catholics established Unbound as an organisation with the mission of putting resources directly into the hands of those who are less fortunate around the world. It is currently able to provide individualised assistance to children, elderly people, and their families who are living in poverty in Latin America, Asia, and Africa by utilising a network of thousands of sponsors throughout the world.

“something that spoke to my heart for kids and the development of children and of making sure that they grew up with resources and the ability to succeed,” Roumie said in an interview with CNA when he was looking for a charity to begin working with. This was the primary component that he was hoping to find when he was looking for a charity to begin working with.During his time in Tanzania, the Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie had the opportunity to meet Ibrahimu, whom he has been sponsoring through Unbound since 2019. Thank you to Unbound.

The partnership that he had with Unbound was described by him as “a wonderful, beautiful, life-giving, impactful relationship on me, just as much as the child I’d say.”

The actor stated that he had no concept about the poverty that people endure in other parts of the world because he had grown up in a relatively insulated environment in a suburban area of New York. During his first trip to Senegal, which was twenty-five years ago, he caught his first glimpse of it.

In light of the fact that he was able to see personally the impact that his sponsorship has had on these children, their families, and the community, Roumie referred to his recent journey to Rwanda and Tanzania as “truly powerful.”

“To be able to visit these children that I’ve been connected to through sponsorship and to see exactly how my resources and resources for everyone there who’s being sponsored … are being stewarded and to what level of impact they’re having — to see that actually come alive and see what the water treatment programs they have set up are, how they manage their resources as a community, how they’re able to then build like a savings account and being able to steward those savings toward individual needs within the community — seeing that in person lived out was just so fruitful and it was so powerful for me,” he said.

Unbound.