Other programmes and facilities 

The core activity of our organisation is the construction and running of SOS Children's Villages, but we also run a whole array of supporting facilities and programmes (more than 1,100). Target groups with these facilities and programmes are both children and youths from the SOS Children's Villages and the local population - an essential contribution to community development and the prevention of child abandonment.

An SOS Emergency Relief Programme is our way of offering swift and un-bureaucratic aid to areas hit by war, crisis or natural disasters. SOS Children's Villages sets up food supply centres in famine- and drought-stricken areas, in many cases guaranteeing basic nourishment of children and their families until the local supply infrastructure has been restored. In the aftermath of natural disasters, emergency accommodation or building material for reconstruction may be provided. Although emergency relief programmes are set up as temporary initiatives, facilities for long-term help for the stricken community are often established.

More on SOS Emergency Relief Programmes

SOS-Kinderdorf International, the umbrella organisation of SOS Children's Villages, was set up to provide children in need with long-term help and as such is not an emergency relief organisation. It offers a new and permanent home in a family-like environment to children who have lost or are, for a variety of reasons, no longer able to live with their natural family. In addition to SOS Children's Villages the organisation runs other long-term facilities such as kindergartens, schools, medical- and social centres to help the local population and the SOS children and youth.

In crisis situations caused by war or natural disasters, SOS Children's Villages is able to respond swiftly through its network of facilities to help victims, running its own relief programmes or collaborating with the state, UN or other NGOs. Emergency relief, however, forms only a subsidiary part of SOS Children's Villages' work, and our SOS Emergency Relief Programmes are small scale in comparison to those of other NGOs in the field.

Our programmes for people affected by HIV/AIDS concentrate on the education of children and youngsters in preventing the spread of the disease and on giving support and help to child- or grandparent-headed families, where the parents have been killed by the disease. It is imperative to inform our children, youngsters and employees about how to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. When children living in an SOS Children's Village develop AIDS, we aim to look after them in the village for as long as possible, provided that the necessary medical means are available.

The SOS Medical Centres play a crucial role in HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programmes, testing, counselling and being a support venue for people living with HIV/AIDS. SOS Kindergartens and SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools offer educational scholarship programmes to children from families affected by HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is introduced in all curricula and special educational material is developed.

Our community support programmes for people affected by HIV/AIDS concentrate on the assistance and support for child- or grandparent-headed families: material support, education, links with social security/welfare provision, HIV/AIDS prevention/awareness campaigns, counselling and income generating activities.