Why are some of these children older than usual for their grade level?

In Haiti, children attend school when their families can afford to send them. When they cannot, the children simply miss a year or more. When the family has scraped together the funds to send their children back to school, they resume at the grade level they left off at. A student can repeat this pattern of missing a year or more and then attending a year or more over and over again. So while in developed countries, children in a given grade are all more or less within a year in age, in Haiti it is very common to find children (and even adults) of all ages in the various grades. By sponsoring a child, you give that child the opportunity to complete his or her education on time so they have a chance to begin making a difference in their lives at an earlier age.