Our impact

Strengthening families

Across the world families are at crisis point. Many are unable to feed their children. As a last and painful resort, they give them away.

• We recognise that by helping families out of hardship, we can help them stay together.
• We help them access services such as social housing, food, clothes, school supplies, healthcare and education.
• We help with vocational training to find a job or financing to start a small business.
• We provide parenting workshops to support children’s development and build nurturing and safe homes.
• We provide family counselling and trauma support to help families heal and move forwards in their lives.

As a result, over 90% of participants in our family strengthening programmes succeed in fulfilling their parental obligations.

Providing care for children

We are here for vulnerable children.

• If a child is alone or is unable to stay with their family, we either provide them with a foster family or we care for them in a family-like environment in our SOS Villages and communities.
• We aim to keep siblings together and maintain close links with family members for possible reunification later, if it is in the best interest of the child.
• We provide health care and schooling right up to adulthood with an eye on future skills and employability so that all SOS Children have the opportunity to work and thrive.
• We also provide extensive training to our SOS parents to ensure the safeguarding of all of the children.
• In some countries in the world without any formal childcare services or family support, SOS Villages has provided a much needed safety net for thousands of children in need.

Systemic change and advocacy

We have been engaging in local advocacy for children’s rights in 92 countries.

• We speak up for children on the international stage but also in national and local government.
• We teach communities how to speak up for their children and protect them.
• We listen to children and young people and encourage them to speak up for their rights by running innovative workshops to empower them.
• Our advocacy work is designed to change policy and practice, and to improve national child and family welfare systems.

Recent examples of policy change we have achieved are:

Georgia: The National Parliament adopted the Child Rights Code, making the state legally responsible to provide support for care leavers.

Indonesia: We contributed to the drafting of the Ministerial Regulation of Social Affairs on Foster Care and the guidelines for the implementation of the government’s foster care pilot project.

Malawi: We successfully advocated for the development of the National Children’s Rights Policy which covers all areas of children’s lives including alternative care.