 On 26 December 2009, it will be five years since tsunami waves crashed ashore South India and wiped out many families in the coastal provinces Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry). The survivors - many of them children - faced a catastrophe of historic dimensions, a trauma which only time will heal. More... 23/11/2009 - SOS Children's Villages International is very pleased to announce that on 20 November 2009 the United Nations General Assembly in New York adopted a resolution welcoming the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. Over the last five years, SOS Children's Villages International has been a leading organisation in supporting the development of these Guidelines and promoting them towards adoption. More... 27/10/2009 - There is something special about the new SOS Children's Village in Cali, recently opened in Colombia's third largest city: It is the 500th SOS Children's Village in the world - exactly 60 years after the first SOS Children's Village was set up in Imst, Austria. More... Jamal, age 16, has carried out a study in which he explores the relationship between children living at the SOS Children's Village in Amman and Jordanian society. The aim of his initiative is to raise awareness, improve the image of the village and, most importantly, bridge the existing gap between the two sides. More...11/06/2008 - In 2004 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child gave the impulse for the development of guidelines on the protection of children without parental care. A group of NGOs, including SOS Children's Villages, prepared the first draft guidelines and since August 2006 the guidelines are being discussed by government experts under the leadership of the Brazilian government. More...03/04/2008 - From April 8-10, three years of planning and conceptualisation will be drawn together at a workshop in Cairo intended to launch a regional process to formulate Arab Guidelines for Children without Parental Care. More...31/03/2008 - Another success for the Quality4Children Standards: The Maltese Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity has used the Q4C Standards as a basis for their "National Standards for Residential Child Care" which were launched for consultation in February. More... "De-institutionalisation" is a rather unwieldy term. It is the opposite of administration and refers to one of the most important processes in out-of-family childcare in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. SOS Children's Villages is involved in this reform process, in one form or another, in 19 countries. The objective is to either fundamentally change the institutional system or replace the old system with alternative forms of care and establish social support for families. More... "I can't remember exactly when I started to feel comfortable with my foster family. Maybe when I was getting washed. Cleanliness is very important to me. You know¿ being put to bed at 7.30 p.m., maybe being carried all wrapped up in a towel, getting a bowl of fruit, always eating meals at the same time... everything is structured. Small things such as these are so important."
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