… SOS Children's Village number 500 will be inaugurated in 2009? Since 1949, more than 45,800 children have grown up in SOS Children's Villages all around the world.
… more than one million children, youth and families are supported in around 1,900 SOS facilities and programmes with a large percentage of them being supported in the frame of SOS family strengthening programmes? A variety of long-term social support programmes have been developed to prevent disadvantaged and vulnerable families from breaking up.
… some 5,300 SOS mothers are currently taking care of 57,000 children? Couples and men (particularly in European countries), too, take care of SOS families as parents. Furthermore there are 3,500 family assistants who support and assist the SOS mothers. In doing so, many of these women complete the practical part of their training as SOS mothers. Numerous governments have officially recognised the SOS mother/parent profession as a social profession and have equated it with similar professional categories.
… SOS Children's Villages has approximately 30,000 employees in 132 countries and territories around the world and almost exclusively employs local staff?
… more than half of the donations for our global work come from Germany? Besides, sponsors and private donators procure 80 % of all our funds.
… India, with its 39 SOS Children's Villages and numerous social facilities and programmes, has the highest number of SOS projects worldwide?
… the highest located SOS Children Village in El Alto, Bolivia, lies 4,200 metres above sea level?
... the most southern SOS Children's Village is located on the Chilean island of Chiloé, while the most northern SOS Children's Village can be found in Kandalaksha at the White Sea in Russia?
… there are nine SOS Children's Villages for Tibetan children, eight of them situated in Northern India and one in Pokhara in Nepal? The worldwide biggest SOS Children's Village with over 2,400 children is located in Leh-Ladakh; another 2,200 children live in the 45 family houses of SOS Children's Village Dharamsala. The high capacity of these SOS Children's Villages is due to a strong demand for care facilities for Tibetan children out of Tibet. However, many of these children only stay in the villages for short or middle term care until they are able to move to other communities. Since 2002, Lhasa, the capital of the Autonomous Province of Tibet, also has an SOS Children's Village.
… in the short period from 1988 to now we have initiated 100 emergency programmes for children and families in need as a consequence of disasters, war and conflict situations? Our largest aid and reconstruction programme was launched at the end of 2004, after the Tsunami disaster, and included India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
… the SOS Clinic in Mogadishu/Somalia is the most frequented SOS facility with approximately 300,000 treatments per year? With only short interruptions, the clinic that is supported by ECHO (European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office) has been able to keep operating even in the hardest wartime days and despite repeated assaults.
… SOS Children's Villages has established national, regional and international networks regarding children's rights, child protection and other specific projects? We co-operate with various NGOs and governmental organisations and are members of NGO groups that aim at giving children's concerns a political dimension and improving the living conditions of children.
... within the framework of the European Quality4Children project, SOS Children's Villages, IFCO (International Foster Care Organisation) and FICE (Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives) have developed quality standards for out-of-home child and youth care, which have been presented at the European Parliament? The objective of the project is formal integration of these standards into the national legislations.