After 40 years of helping children in need, SOS now seeks assistance

Children are invaluable assets to any nation. It is the rightful duty of parents to ensure their children are brought up well so he or she may successfully integrate to society and be productive individuals. Unfortunately, there are some children who do not get the blessings of being cared for by parents, thus becoming orphaned. Such children end up without parental care, inevitably winding up in precarious situations. Who will take care of such children? Fortunately, these children are not without hope. One of the movements doing this effectively is SOS Children’s Villages, an independent non-governmental organisation. It has been working for almost 40 years to ensure such children do not get abandoned and end up in vulnerable situations or be victimised.   

To know more on how you can give a lending hand, contact 0763227422   

“With more than 70 years of expertise globally, SOS Children’s Villages is able to provide the best alternative care for children who have lost their parents due to various reasons including, but not limited to, financial instability, family breakdown, psycho-social factors and poverty. Using its expertise, the organisation has developed a programme which incorporates necessities a child without parental care would need to grow up and be a healthy young adult. This is known as ‘SOS Family Care.’ This is a solution in which an orphaned child is given the best alternative care similar to a normal biological family setting by providing the child with a loving home, caring mother, supportive siblings and a safe community to grow up in,” an SOS spokesman said.

In Sri Lanka, there are six SOS Children’s Villages located in Piliyandala, Galle, Monaragala, Nuwara Eliya, Anuradhapura and Jaffna. Each consists of several houses known as SOS homes. In each home, there is a long-term caregiver known as the SOS mother who is entrusted the responsibility to care for 8-10 children who have lost parental care. These children living in the same house eventually develop sibling-like bonds among each other, thus creating a splendid family environment of having a mother and brothers and sisters living under the same roof. Each village has a guarded and secure perimeter ensuring a safe community. There are over 800 orphaned children benefitting in all six villages at the moment. 

This ‘SOS Family Care’ method of bringing up orphaned and abandoned children has proven to be extremely successful as they receive the love of a mother, affection of siblings and a safe home to grow up in. All children in SOS Children’s Village attend school. They are given necessary needs such as uniforms, stationery, books and bags. There are many young adults who have grown up in SOS Children’s Villages and are now successful graduates living well in society. Boys and girls who are unable to gain university entrance are given the option of following a vocational training course either at SOS Children’s Villages Vocational Training Centres or at an external one most convenient for them. There are four SOS Vocational Training Centres in Sri  Lanka at the moment. 

Once children reach a certain age – boys 14 and girls 18 – they are transferred to a separate house known as ‘Youth Facility.’ The rationale behind this is to provide an environment in which young adolescent youth will gradually learn to be independent by taking care of themselves under the guidance of an SOS co-worker. They also learn to share responsibility among their peers who live alongside them. Boys and girls living at this facility can always visit their SOS mother and siblings in the children’s village. It is important to note that separate youth facilities are maintained for boys and girls. 

It is in the best interest of a child to grow up in his or her biological family. SOS Children’s Villages understand this. It is due to this very reason that they have another highly-effective programme in place that takes preventive measures to save families that are at risk of breaking down, resulting in children from such families being rendered parentless. This programme is called ‘SOS Family Strengthening Programme.’ SOS Children’s Villages identify families living below the poverty line in target locations countrywide and enrol them to this programme to alleviate these families out of poverty. The SOS Family Strengthening Programme is a five-year programme in which enrolled families are empowered to be financially-independent. They are taught self-employment skills such as sewing, handloom, rope braiding and so forth, free of charge. 

These families are also provided financial assistance whereby SOS Children’s Villages cover the cost of schooling for children so their parents do not have to worry about educational expenses of their children during the programme period, thus creating a financial saving for them. These families are trained on ways of saving money and efficient spending methods. Extra tuition classes are also conducted for children in these families so they can improve on weak subjects. All of these are done free of charge. Nearly 3,500 poverty-stricken families have benefitted from this programme. 

Unfortunately, this movement that provides an immense social service to Sri  Lanka is faced with an enormous challenge. For the past 39 years, SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka was funded by its international umbrella organisation based in Austria. In 2017, after Sri Lanka was categorised as a middle-income earning country by the World Bank, international funds are being scaled down gradually. Now, the umbrella organisation expects SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka to self-sustain by raising funds to meet local expenses, so that international funds can be channeled to needier and poorer nations. Raising funds locally is no easy feat. A substantial sum per year is needed to meet the expenses of six children’s villages including ancillary programmes such as SOS Family Strengthening, Vocational Training and SOS Kindergarten to name a few. It is with utmost difficulty that SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka is continuing its social work without shutting down its programmes. 

SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka hereby request and hope Sri Lankan people will extend a supportive hand to help it carry on the social endeavour which is positively impacting thousands of lives; changing it for the better. To know more on how you can give a lending hand, contact 0763227422.