On National Letter Writing Day, World Vision reveals that around one in five children has never received a handwritten letter.

On National Letter Writing day today, 21 May 2010, the charity World Vision has revealed that one in five children in the UK have never received a handwritten letter, although almost half had written a text or email on social networking sites in the last week alone.

Other findings of the survey, commissioned by the international charity, showed that more than a quarter of children (26%) had never written a letter themselves, while nearly all of those surveyed (90%) stated that they enjoyed receiving letters and felt “happy that they occupy someone’s thoughts”.

The most common reason for writing a letter was to thank someone.

Sue Palmer, Child Education Expert, said: “The effort of writing is a very real one for a child. It is, however, an effort worth making, because it’s only through practice that we become truly literate – and literacy is the hallmark of human civilisation.”

According to the survey, only 5% of children received letters from penpals abroad. Letter writing is a key aspect of World Vision’s Child Sponsorship programme, which aims to connect families in the UK with people in the developing world.

Kate Nicholas, Associate Director at World Vision, said: “We know that literacy is one of the main ways to fight poverty in the developing world, but it’s also a key concern for the parents and teachers, up and down the UK, who sponsor with World Vision.

“Many of them see Child Sponsorship as a win-win situation. It allows children to improve their literacy and build a personal relationship through letter-writing, while understanding more about the world and giving children living in poverty the chance to access education themselves.”

World Vision works to help eliminate poverty by addressing its causes, through advocacy, disaster management, and development. Among its many projects, it has recently distributed aid in the wake of the China earthquake; called for violence to cease in Gaza; and has led the aid response to the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe.