Vote for SOS volunteers nominated for Barclays Citizenship Awards 2013

SOS Children's Village Pune 

Many children and young people of SOS Children's Village Pune in India learnt soft skills from volunteers of  Barclays Technology Centre India. In future some of them would be shortlisted for the apprenticeships.

In the meanwhile the volunteers are nominated for the Barclays Citizenship Awards 2013.

Here is your chance to vote for the volunteers: VOTE NOW 
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SOS Children's Villages India
www.soschildrensvillages.in
Telephone: +91-11- 4323 9200
Toll-free No.: 1800 102 6905
Email : soscvi@soscvindia.org

Vote for SOS Mother Maria Kristina Da Guer for Role Model for Peace

Vote for Maria Kristina Da Guer, who coordinates the SOS Children's Villages Family Strengthening Program in Sikka District in Flores in Indonesia.

Click to Vote on N-Peace

Thanks to her GESER (Gerakan Seribu Rupiah), or “One-Thousand Rupiah Movement”campaign, there has been a fall in the number of pregnant women with anaemia and in the number of infants being born unhealthy. All women facing high-risk pregnancies and labour have been able to receive medical treatment in hospital.


N-Peace is a multi-country network of peace advocates in Asia (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the Philippines and Afghanistan) seeking to advance Women, Peace & Security (WPS) issues. It supports women’s leadership for conflict prevention, resolution and peace building, and promotes the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, and related resolutions, at regional, national and community levels.


You can contact SOS Children's Village Indonesia:
SOS Children's Villages - FDC Office
Plaza Nariba, Jl. Mampang Prapatan Raya No. 39 Unit B2a, Jakarta Selatan 12790
Phone/Fax: 021 7991529
Email: SahabatSOS@sos.or.id

Donations can be made by Money Order in favour of "Yay SOS Ds Taruna/Kinderdorf"
Bank Central Asia (BCA) Lembang - No. 008-3750445

SOS Children’s Villages Offer Warmth and Care

By Sylviana Hamdani
Jakarta Globe

Children in SOS Villages advance their skills in creative disciplines

Children are our future. Yet so many of them grow up without loving homes and proper education, condemning them to a lifetime of crime and poverty.

“There are more than 100 million kids without parents or families in the world,” said SOS Children’s Villages Indonesia national director Gregor Hadi Nitihardjo. “Four million of them are in Indonesia.”
SOS Children’s Villages is an independent, apolitical, non-denominational international organization founded in Austria in 1949.

The organization uses a family-based care system, in which the children live in a group of houses, called SOS Children’s Villages, as big families. In each house there is a “mother” — a person who takes care of the children.

“The idea came from a young, unmarried man in Austria over 60 years ago,” said Hadi. “Everybody laughed at him at that time. But he was so convinced by this concept.”

With only 600 Austrian schillings and a strong conviction in his heart, Hermann Gmeiner started the first SOS Children’s Village in Imst in his home country. The first village, opened in 1949, took in hundreds of children orphaned by World War II.

Now there are 518 SOS Children’s Villages in 133 countries, taking care of more than 80,000 children.
There are eight SOS Children’s Villages in Indonesia, looking after more than 8,000 children. Each village contains between 10 and 15 homes that each accommodate about 10 children.

The children usually go to schools outside of the villages and mingle with other children in their society. In the evening, they come home to their loving families at SOS Children’s Villages.

“According to the social department, there are around 5,000 to 8,000 child-care institutions in Indonesia,” Hadi said.

“Yet we can say we’re the most successful one. We give the children what’s missing in their lives, which is a family’s loving care.”

General manager of Louis Vuitton Indonesia, Simpirwati Simarno, visited the SOS Children’s Village in Lembang, Bandung, during her vacation in 2009, and was very impressed.

“I was impressed to see that the ‘mothers’ were truly sincere and dedicated to taking care of the children,” Simpirwati said. “There’s a strong sense of attachment in each home, just like in real families.”
Since her first visit, Simpirwati has arranged team visits for Louis Vuitton staff to SOS Children’s Villages in Jakarta and Bandung. During these visits, the Louis Vuitton team conducts fun activities and donates money.

“What’s so amazing was the staff’s response,” Simpirwati said. “Every time we organized activities with SOS kids, everyone looked so happy. They brought along their families and played with the kids.”
Louis Vuitton Indonesia’s interest in SOS Children’s Villages preceded a five-year global commitment by Louis Vuitton International to SOS Children’s Villages around the world.

“The global commitment started in 2010,” said Jean-Christophe Thevenin, general manager of Louis Vuitton in Southeast Asia. “But LV Indonesia started one year before that. So, [in a way], LV Indonesia showed the way [to contribute] to Louis Vuitton around the world.”

The five-year global commitment involves a variety of projects tailored to suit the needs of SOS children in each city.

In Bhubaneswar, India, for example, Louis Vuitton launched a competition among its in-house architects to develop a learning center for SOS children.

The winning project, Roshandan, meaning “where there is light,” incorporates a design that allows the optimal penetration of sunlight while allowing a natural and continuous air circulation within the building.

In Vietnam, Louis Vuitton established a day-boarding facility in the SOS Hermann Gmeiner School in Nha Trang to allow SOS kids and other students at the school to rest between lessons. Most kids in Nha Trang have to travel long distances to go to school, leaving them very tired during lessons.

In Indonesia, Louis Vuitton donated several pieces of arts and sports equipment and built bale bengong , open-air halls, for children’s activities in the SOS Children’s Village in Cibubur, East Jakarta, in 2010.
“We hope to foster artistic and sports skills in children besides the lessons that they learn at school,” Simpirwati said.

In 2011, Louis Vuitton provided scholarships for 150 SOS children in Cibubur.

Recently, the intellectual property department of Louis Vuitton International donated $110,000 for SOS Children’s Villages in Indonesia.

“We discussed and came to the conclusion that it should be donated to the SOS Children’s Villages in Flores,” Simpirwati said.

Home to pristine natural beauty, Flores, located in East Nusa Tenggara, is one of the least developed areas in Indonesia.

The donation will be used to renovate the kindergarten and build an open-air hall for children’s activities, as well as purchase and operate three mobile libraries.

The mobile libraries will serve more than 200 SOS children and 2,000 other youngsters in the small town.

“For us in Java, it’s very easy to get information and knowledge,” Hadi said. “We can access the Internet and find everything that we need to know, or go to libraries, courses and seminars to get more knowledge. But that’s not the case in Flores.”

Due to its harsh terrain, there is very limited Internet access. There are also very few libraries, courses or seminars in the small town.

Hadi also plans to use the donations to invite tutors from Java to train SOS “mothers” and school teachers.

In addition to the donation, Louis Vuitton has committed to covering the running costs of the SOS kindergarten and mobile libraries in Flores for the next three years.

“So this is not just a one-shot project,” Simpirwati said. “We really want the kids of Flores to enjoy these new facilities.”

Hadi said he appreciated Louis Vuitton’s commitment to the project.

“This is very good,” Hadi said. “Many companies build something and leave. We didn’t know what to do with the buildings and couldn’t afford their maintenance costs. But with LV, we’re sure that the new facilities will indeed be useful for the kids.”

You can contact SOS Children's Village Indonesia:
SOS Children's Villages - FDC Office
Plaza Nariba, Jl. Mampang Prapatan Raya No. 39 Unit B2a, Jakarta Selatan 12790
Phone/Fax: 021 7991529
Email: SahabatSOS@sos.or.id  

Donations can be made by Money Order in favour of "Yay SOS Ds Taruna/Kinderdorf"
Bank Central Asia (BCA) Lembang - No. 008-3750445

SOS Thailand celebrates Family Day with people in Bagkok

SOS Children's Villages Thailand would like to thank to all kind-hearted souls who attended the event of International Day of Families, on May 15, 2013 at Life Style Hall, 2nd Floor. The aim of this meaningful event was to spare some time to giving thanks to our own families and to remember and reach out to all those children throughout the world who do not have a family that can nurture and give them a sense of belonging.

An SOS mother and her child curating the kitchen garden in Thailand

You can also step in and help children by giving them a family and a sense of belonging: 

Donate online: SOS Children's Villages Thailand

Call national office: +66 2 3801177

Email: info@sos-thailand.org

Reach on this address: 18 Moo3, Soi Boonsiri, Sukhumvit Road, Samutprakarn, Thailand
Fax: + 66 2 755 5576

SOS Children's Villages India celebrates Family Day

Everyday life in SOS families across India

Family is the heart of society. To reiterate this fact and importance of a family SOS Children's Villages is celebrating today the International Day of Families. Within a family each child is protected and enjoys a sense of belonging. Here, children learn values, share responsibilities and form life-long relationships. A family environment gives them a solid foundation on which to build their lives. This is what SOS Children's Villages all about.

How a child comes to an SOS Children's Village and receives the joy of life - you can read story of Raunaq who is doing very good and forgot the past.

Read this in detail -  Raunaq was 24 months old when he was found abandoned


Sponsor a child today.
Online: www.soschildrensvillages.in
Telephone: +91-11- 4323 9200
Toll-free No.: 1800 102 6905
Email : soscvi@soscvindia.org