SOS Children's Villages of India is an independent, non-governmental, social development organisation that provides family-based care for parentless or abandoned children in India. The organization is over 50 years old in India and it advocates the concerns, rights and needs of children in need of care and protection.
Children playing at an SOS Children's Village
At SOS Children’s Villages of India, we are committed to the welfare of children - often throughout the whole of their childhood - and to strengthening families and communities as a preventive measure in the fight against abandonment and social neglect.
The organization’s work is based on the following four pillars:
The Mother: Every child has a caring parent, Brothers and Sisters: Every child has family ties and he or she grows up with a sense of responsibility and a spirit of sharing, The House: A place where the child feels secure and has a sense of belonging, and The Village: A community that surrounds the child, so that every child has roots.
One of the most unique features of SOS Children's Villages is the home-like environment and the long-term support given to every SOS child up to 24 years of age.
OUR FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES:
There are two flagship programmes that form the core of the organization. The first being the FAMILY BASED CARE (FBC), a curative program of SOS Children’s Villages of India, that reaches out to over 6500 girls and boys in 32 children’s villages across India.
Each village has 12 -15 Family Homes, with every home consisting of 10 children on an average along with an SOS mother. All round development including education, nutrition, health and psychological development is taken care of till the children are settled in their lives.
In addition to the Children’s Villages that form the core of SOS Children’s Villages of India’s work, the organization runs a whole gamut of programmes and facilities in support of socially disadvantaged and impoverished families to help them lead a decent life in the long-term. Family Strengthening Program (FSP) is one such programme which aims to support families and communities to develop their capacity to effectively protect and care for their children, so that children are able to grow within a caring family environment and are prevented from being abandoned.
FAMILY STRENGTHENING PROGRAMME or FSP is a preventive community intervention program that covers over 17000 children at 32 locations across India. Designed to prevent children from losing parental care or from being abandoned, this program runs in slums & rural areas, within a 30 km radius of an SOS Children’s Village. The beneficiaries of this program are children of the most vulnerable lot i.e. children of widows, single women, and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Spanning 3 to 5 years, the program aims to enable families to move out of the vicious cycle of poverty towards greater dignity and self-reliance by ensuring education of children and income generating capacity development of the care givers.
What makes SOS families so unique in the world of alternative care is the long-term relationship every child develops with his or her SOS brothers and sisters and the SOS mother. Additionally, together with partners from the community, the organisation provides health care and education to children and families, if these services are not readily available. SOS Children’s Villages of India also operates kindergartens, day-care centres, schools and vocational training centres and also runs medical centres, with an emphasis on specialised child care and women empowerment.
Finally, through advocacy, we aim to improve the overall framework conditions for children who have been rendered orphaned or who are at risk of losing parental care. We work in the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and we promote these rights through our flagship programmes. Successful advocacy, based on our experience as a practitioner, brings about changes in policies and practices that weaken children’s rights leads to sustainable changes to improve the situation for children and families everywhere.
50 Years, 22 states, 32 SOS Children’s Villages and over 25, 000 beneficiaries. That’s where we stand today. Proud in our pursuit and commitment of providing quality care and a sense of identity to a once abandoned or parentless child, we take responsibility of each and every life thriving in an SOS family.
SOS Children’s Villages of India is a part of the worldwide non-governmental social development organisation, SOS Children’s Villages International, active in the field of child care in 133 countries around the world.