International Day of the Family

The International Day of the Family 15 May 2009

Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, the International Day of the Family aims to promote national and international awareness of issues relating to families as 'essential units of society' and to' strengthen public efforts for supporting families who are confronted with fundamental changes in economic, social and cultural terms'.

When the United Nations proclaimed 1994 to be the International Year of the Family, it described the family the "Smallest Democracy at the Heart of Society". Is this still valid today? Does this also apply if, as is sometimes the case, violence occurs within a family behind closed doors or, as is more frequently the case, a family breaks up due to socio-economic problems?

For SOS Children, the child is central to the family and society. The children often have just one parent, are orphans or have been abandoned. They sometimes live with one parent or a grandparent. Some grow up with their biological parents and siblings, but their family experiences great difficulties such as poverty, violence, alcohol, drugs, prostitution or criminality. Other families suffer from the problems of long-term unemployment, discrimination, parental disability or serious parental illness.

SOS Social Centres and SOS Family Strengthening Programmes are there to help children such as these and their families. SOS Social Centres for example, co-ordinate the distribution of food parcels and clothing, make home visits to families, and offer psychological and social care. When necessary, they pay for the children's school fees and school uniforms. It is not uncommon for SOS Children to come across families that are run by the grandmother or the eldest child of the family. In such cases, it is particularly important to care for the children by supporting the person who is running the family. Providing care through family members is the most reliable way and is essential to keeping the family together.

For families affected by HIV/AIDS, SOS Family Strengthening Programmes provide specific forms of support. In Mbabane (Swaziland) or Maseru (Lesotho), this involves carers paying regular visits, home help, tutoring school children, encouraging people to set up their own businesses (such as market gardening) and other measures to improve the families' living standards. Information campaigns are another way to help increase young people's awareness, through the "Stop AIDS Club" in Gitega (Burundi) or through dramatic performances and songs with "Go back to school" in Lilongwe (Malawi). Children living with parents who have HIV/AIDS are often forced to miss school to look after their parents or younger siblings at home. They are often stigmatised, suffer from hunger and are not protected; in the worst cases they are excluded from public health, education and other public facilities. Many of their rights are simply not respected.

SOS Children's Villages carries out preventative work. We want to help while there is still time to do so: to take measures so that the youngest members of the families concerned do not become street children or meet another sad fate. Today, around 250,000 children in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe are now directly or indirectly receiving our support. And by 2016, with your help, we aim to reach out to 650,000 more.

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