The first SOS Children’s Village in China was built in 1987 in Tianjin, not far from the capital Beijing. Currently, nine SOS Children’s Villages are providing a new home to more than 1,000 girls and boys: in Tianjin, Yantai, Qiqihar, Nanchang, Putian, Chengdu, Kaifeng, Urumqi and Lhasa.
The tenth SOS Children’s Village is currently being built in Beijing and is to be completed this year.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
Each SOS Children’s Village has its own kindergarten which is also open to the children from the area and which is very well attended.
More than 90% of all children in the SOS Kindergartens do not live in an SOS Children’s Village but rather come from the direct neighbourhood.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
SOS Children’s Villages China is particularly proud of its SOS Hermann Gmeiner School in Yantai. With more than 3,000 pupils it is the biggest SOS school worldwide. It has model school status and is one of the best schools of the country.
Calligraphy is part of the traditional curriculum. Some effort is required until the children are able to draw hair strokes with the big brush. During the first weeks of school it is typical for the pupils of the first grade to have ink stains on their hands.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
The SOS vocational training centre in Qiqihar prepares 500 pupils for their working life by providing them with practically oriented training. Accountancy, common computer programmes and business management are some of the subjects of the curriculum.
15-year-old Luo decided to attend the technical branch of the school, although he is also very interested in art. His calligraphy pictures have already been printed in a local magazine. Proudly, he presents two of his numerous masterpieces.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
The approaching Olympic Games are omnipresent in the SOS Children’s Village Tianjin. No room, no class room without a wall decorated with an Olympic Ring or one of the five Olympic mascots.
SOS tries to find sponsors in order to have children from other regions come to Beijing to be present at an Olympic sports event.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
In house no. 15 of the SOS Children’s Village Tianjin the dinner conversation is also about the Olympic Games. SOS mother Xia (the picture shows her with her family and a family assistant) gets up at half past five every day. The children have to go to school at 6.45 a.m. In a family of five girls and three boys it takes some organizational skills to have the children leave the house in time.
The older ones stay at school for lunch, so innumerable snacks have to be prepared as well. But then it becomes quiet in the house and Xia sits down with a cup of tea. “This half hour is mine”.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
At 5 p.m. at the very latest, the whole family is at home again and cooks dinner together. “We want to have one meal per day together”, says Xia. “They have to feel that we are one family where we can all rely on each other!” As soon as the dishes are removed from the table it is time for homework.
Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen
To us, the day of a Chinese SOS family does not differ from that of a normal family somewhere in Europe. However, from the Chinese point of view it differs a lot: the common 1-child family can not be compared with the cheerful hurly-burly in an SOS family house. ”My children are proud to have so many brothers and sisters! Some of the other children at school are even jealous”, states SOS mother Xia.
Photo: SOS-Archiv
After the heavy earthquake last spring, SOS Children’s Villages China immediately established an emergency relief programme, providing accommodation, distributing food and building a tent school. some of the affected children gratefully wrote the words “We are safe!” in English on a stone in the garden of the SOS Children’s Village Chengdu after the earthquake.