About SOS Children's Villages of India

About Us

We are an independent, non-governmental and non-profit organisation working for the holistic development of parentless children, women and children belonging to vulnerable families. Founded in 1949 in Austria, SOS Children's Villages began its operations in India in 1964. For over 50 years, we have reached out to over 25,000 children through our 32 SOS Children's Villages and 32 community projects in India.

SOS Children's Villages of India was established in 1964 at Faridabad near Delhi. SOS India has worked with children, communities, disaster struck and disaster prone areas, giving hope to weary communities and families. SOS India is the largest operation within the SOS International Federation of 134 countries.

At SOS Children’s Villages of India, we are committed to the welfare of parentless and abandoned children and to strengthening families and communities as a preventive measure in the fight against abandonment and social neglect.

The organisation’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
The Village: A community that surrounds the child so that every child has familial 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 child under our care up to the age of 24.

OUR FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES

FAMILY BASED CARE (FBC):

A curative programme 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. Holistic development including education, nutrition, health and psychological development is taken care of till the time children are settled in their lives.

FAMILY STRENGTHENING PROGRAMME (FSP):

FSP is a preventive community intervention programme that covers over 17000 children at 32 locations across India. Designed to prevent children from losing parental care or from being abandoned, this programme 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 programme 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 the 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.