The principal task for SOS Children's Villages is the provision of educational and care facilities for the children and adolescents in our care.
The SOS family and the relationship with the SOS Mother in particular provide the necessary foundation for the further development of a child. This solid and protected framework offers all the material and emotional security a child needs to develop into an integral, independent adult.
Beyond that, SOS Children's Villages runs a number of educational facilities: kindergartens, day care centres, schools, various facilities of youth care, training and production facilities, etc. All these places of education aim to support the children in developing their opportunities and potential to the full and to help them to become an "accepted member of society".
The overwhelming majority of our ways at looking at education relates to the above mentioned part of the socialisation process, structured and shaped by us adults. However, there is another important part of this process we tend to overlook very easily and which has also a tremendous impact on the socialisation and development of a child: the area where children and adolescents create their own places, where they are free to develop - either alone or by interacting with peers.
We would like to gain a little insight into these self-created places and make them the main feature of this FORUM.