SOS Children in South Africa

However, income distribution in the country is among the most unequal in the world. Almost 57 per cent of the population are living in poverty. It is estimated that up to 50,000 children die each year from malnutrition or diseases that would be curable with adequate medical care.

A second SOS Children's Village was built in Mamelodi township near the capital Pretoria in 1987. The Village consists of 15 family homes and five SOS Youth Homes. An SOS Social Centre provides training in computer technology and dressmaking. In addition, a community outreach programme supports over 30 local child daycare centres with materials and advisory services.

An SOS Children's Village was built in Cape Town in 1994. It was the first racially integrated SOS Children's Village in South Africa following the end of apartheid, enabling children and SOS mothers of all races to live together in the 15 family houses. The SOS Nursery has three classrooms and older children attend local schools.

In December 1992 an SOS Emergency Relief Programme was established in Natal Province to provide a home for orphaned babies being abandoned in local hospitals. This led to the development of SOS Children's Village Pietermaritzburg which was opened in 1996 by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Village comprises 15 family homes and two youth homes.

Mthatha is the location for our sixth South African SOS Children's Village is in the Eastern Cape Province, north of the provincial capital of Bisho. It has 13 family homes and two SOS Youth Homes where 150 children and young people are cared for. Mthatha is a deprived area where many women are left to care for their families while the men find work elsewhere, and the day care provided by the SOS Children is of great help to them. The charity also runs a primary school, with places for nearly 500 children, as well as a clinic, which provides medical treatment for local people.

In 2004, an SOS Children’s Village was opened in Nelspruit, in the south eastern-most province of Mpumalanga in response to the increasing numbers of child-headed households in the area. The Village was one of the first to follow the charity’s new "Solid, Modest and Integrated" approach to construction: The family houses resemble the local building style and fit seamlessly into the neighbourhood. The Village comprises 10 family houses, where up to 100 children can find a new home.

As part of “6 villages for 2006”, SOS Children's joint 2006 World Cup campaign with FIFA, an eighth village was opened in late 2006 in Rustenburg. The ten family houses in the Village in South Africa’s North West province are filled with vulnerable children from the country’s mining area.  Tottenham Hotspurs paid for the construction of one family house in Rustenburg with the money raised by collecting footballers fines.