Young refugees in their provisional accomodation in Tirana (Albania) - Photo: SOS Archives
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However, some emergency relief programmes, such as large-scale vaccination programmes, may benefit large sections of the population, especially children. Depending on the possibilities of SOS Children's Villages on the spot and the existential requirements, the target groups of the SOS Emergency Relief Programmes are:
- children in danger of dying from starvation and children suffering from serious diseases as a result of malnutrition. In most cases, these children are taken care of together with their mothers (in food supply centres, by means of nutritional programmes, in mother-and-child clinics, by means of relief packages, etc.).
- traumatised children receiving psychotherapeutic treatment.
- children victims of war, threatened with poverty or driven out of their homes who experience a kind of normalisation of their lives and an improvement of their future prospects by means of programmes against illiteracy, by being taught and being offered leisure time activities.
- families that have lost their homes due to natural disasters receive building material and vital goods and/or help for the reconstruction of their homes.
- communities severely hit by disasters that are provided with drinking water through the sinking of wells as well as with urgently needed medical drugs and other supplies.
Mother with child seeking for help in Gode (Ethiopia) - Photo: M. Brusa
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After the SOS Children's Village co-workers on the spot have evaluated the requirements, the most urgent relief measures are taken in consultation and coordination with the competent local and governmental authorities. When SOS Children's Villages takes care of children, for example by giving therapy to traumatised victims of war, in most cases this means a great relief of the strain put on the parents in many cases severely affected themselves.
When SOS Children's Villages sets up day care centres in regions hit by natural disasters, this means that in the meantime the parents can see to the reconstruction of their homes. Thus SOS Emergency Relief Programmes aim at supporting families and at measures that guarantee their continuance and existence.
Nevertheless, in case of disasters affecting large sections of the population, the emergency relief programmes focus primarily on children. Orphans of war, refugee children and children who "got lost" may be taken into the respective SOS Children's Villages or accommodations set up for that purpose on a temporary basis at any time. The intake always takes place at the request of governmental authorities and in coordination with the competent authorities.
Subsequently, the co-workers of SOS Children's Villages try to reunite the children with their relatives, mostly in cooperation with other organisations. In case they cannot be reunited with their families within a certain period of time, they can find a permanent new home in SOS Children's Village families. Quite often, new SOS Children's Villages are set up in order to be able to take in the children on a permanent basis.