SOS Children: helping children worldwide

Here, you'll find details of forthcoming SOS worldwide events, information on international and national conferences as well as socio-political forums and humanitarian action.

15 May 2009 - International Day of the Family

Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, this special day is aimed 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.Read more about how SOS Children's Villages focuses on family issues through our Family Strengthening Programmes here

17 May 2009 - Official opening of SOS Children's Village Gulu in Uganda

Helmut Kutin, President of SOS Children's Villages, will join President Yoweri Museveni to open the third SOS Children's Village in Uganda. The SOS Children's Village in Gulu in northern Uganda started off as an emergency relief programme. Gulu is infamous because for years thousands of children have been travelling into town at dawn each day in order to avoid the dreadful night attacks of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has been terrorising the civilian population in its fight against the government. In their violent criminal campaigns, the rebels have been targeting children and forcing them to become fighters, sex slaves and "wives". In 2002 SOS Children's Villages set up an emergency relief camp for children and young people who escaped from the LRA or were born in captivity and were abandoned. The emergency relief camp was gradually converted into an established SOS Children's Village. Over the past two years there has been a clear improvement after a war that lasted for decades and the children no longer have to march into town each day. The construction work on the SOS Children's Village is now complete and an SOS Social and Medical Centre are also open and already supporting many people. The official opening in Gulu will be more than a symbolic event given the relatively peaceful situation and the strong hope for peace of the people in northern Uganda.

19/20 June 2009 - 60 years SOS Children's Villages

One of the highlights of the 60th anniversary of SOS Children's Villages will be a ceremonial act at the world's first SOS Children's Village in Imst, Austria, on 19 June. When laying the cornerstone in 1949, Hermann Gmeiner for the first time implemented his concept of a caring and family-based environment for children who cannot live with their biological families. We are expecting friends, sponsors, national and international SOS Children's Village representatives, as well as representatives from regional politics, culture and economy at the ceremonial act - and of course many neighbours from Imst. On 20 June we will celebrate with a big children's party.

26 June 2009 - Official opening of SOS Children's Village in Botswana

The SOS Children's Village in Serowe is the third SOS Children's Village in Botswana. Already at the beginning of 2008, the first children moved into the SOS Children's Village at the outskirts of the capital of Botswana's Central District. President Seretse Khama Ian Khama is expected to attend the inauguration on 26 June. The HIV/AIDS issue in Botswana has been particularly precarious for many years. Accordingly, the number of orphans is dramatically high and the living conditions of thousands of these orphaned children are very poor. As a logical response to the alarming situation of many children, the first SOS Children's Village in Tlokweng was gradually extended, a second SOS Children's Village was built in Francistown and our social services were developed further, putting special emphasis on HIV/AIDS prevention and advice and guidance for the families involved. In the area of Serowe, HIV/AIDS has also wiped out great parts of the parent generation. According to estimates, up to 30,000 half-orphans and orphans live in this area alone. The new SOS Children's Village will offer a home to those children who can neither count on the care of their extended family nor on any other out-of-home care facility.

3 July 2009 - Official opening of SOS Children's Village in Beijing

At the beginning of July, SOS Children's Village President Helmut Kutin will officially inaugurate the tenth SOS Children's Village in China.

8 July 2009 - Official opening of the second SOS Children's Village in Mongolia

In Darkhan, Mongolia's third largest city at the Russian boarder, SOS Children's Village President Helmut Kutin will inaugurate Mongolia's second SOS Children's Village. This SOS Children's Village, which can accommodate 140 children, has already been operating since October 2008.