View of SOS Children's Village Kankan - Photo: SOS Archives
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In the course of increasing liberalisation and enhanced social policies for disadvantaged children in the mid-1980s, SOS Children's Villages was able to become active in Guinea in Northwest Africa. The first SOS Children's Village in Guinea was built in Conacry (operative since 1989), with the second village established near the departmental capital of N'Zérékoré (in 2000) in the far southeast of the country. Both locations also include kindergartens and schools attended by children from the neighbourhood, too.
Virulent crises and regularly recurring civil wars in neighbouring countries Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau strongly affect Guinea's social and economic development, which is in turn clearly reflected by the situation of care services for abandoned children. This situation lead to SOS Children's Villages establishing another facility for children in need of care.
SOS mother with her little charges at SOS Children's Village Kankan - Photo: SOS Archives
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The new facility was established in Kankan, the country's second-largest city located approximately 520 km to the northeast of Conacry. Based on highly-qualified training for SOS mothers and well-prepared child admittance procedures, 62 children could immediately move in right after the SOS Children's Village was put into operation in early May 2004. Twelve family houses can take in a maximum 120 children; additional facilities include a kindergarten and an SOS Hermann Gmeiner School for more than 200 pupils from the SOS Children's Village and the neighbourhood.
SOS Children's Villages International Secretary-General Richard Pichler, national and regional SOS Children's Village representatives, government officials and numerous children and mothers attended the inauguration ceremony in Kankan.