Capital: Vienna
Area: 83,858 km²
Population: 8.2 million (December 2000 est.)
Ethnic groups: 90.7% Austrian, 4.2% citizens of the former Yugoslavia, 1.7% Turkish, others 3.4%.
Official language(s): German
Religion(s): 88% Roman Catholic, 6% Protestant
Currency: 1 euro = 100 cents
Our Facilities
Hermann Gmeiner already started dedicating himself to youth work in Innsbruck in the post-war period. As a result of the misery of the war orphans, abandoned children and youths, the barely 30-year-old medical student, who himself had been affected by the early loss of his own mother, developed the SOS Children's Village idea. In 1949 he founded the "Societas Socialis" (SOS) together with friends in Innsbruck, a society, which a year later was converted to the association "SOS Children's Village".
Hermann Gmeiner invested his entire savings in the legendary first appeal to the Austrians to donate one shilling per month. The unexpected success created the basis for the construction of the world's first SOS Children's Village in the Tyrolean community of Imst, of which he himself was the first village director.
The rapidly growing number of donors in the beginning of the 1950's made Hermann Gmeiner think about constructing new SOS Children's Village projects in Austria and also in neighboring foreign countries. In the following years SOS Children's Villages with supporting facilities were founded in all of Austrian provinces, with the exception of Vienna. In 1955 the first SOS Youth House was built in Innsbruck. Towards the end of the 1950's SOS Children's Village Wienerwald in Hinterbrühl near Vienna became operational, which in due course grew into the biggest SOS Children's Village in Western Europe with over 20 family houses. In 2006, the first „urban SOS children’s village“ was opened in Vienna. It consists of rented flats and a social centre (the „FamilienRAThaus“).
The rapid development of SOS Children's Villages on a worldwide level was taken into account with the founding of the umbrella organization "SOS Children's Village International" in 1960. Since 1981 the Hermann Gmeiner Academy had been involved in the pedagogical background work for children and youths and in the training of the SOS mothers and other SOS Children's Village co-workers. In 2007, SOS Children's Village International took over these tasks; the Hermann Gmeiner Academy is now run as a seminar centre only. Both organizations have their head office in Innsbruck.
Hermann Gmeiner died in 1986, but his life's work for the welfare of the children is being successfully continued in Austria and throughout the world. In spite of the fact that Austria has in the meantime become a highly developed country in the centre of Europe, even here there are children and youths who do not find security and loving care in their own family.
With the aim of being able to provide children and youths with the best possible care and preparation for an independent life, a number of supporting facilities have been created alongside the SOS Children's Villages to aid their integration into society and to open up professional opportunities for them.
At the moment there are eleven SOS Children's Villages and corresponding SOS Youth Facilities, eight SOS Kindergartens, one SOS Training Centre for SOS mothers and co-workers, ten SOS Social Centres and one SOS Medical Centre.