SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country
The impetus for the construction of an SOS Children's Village in Belarus was the Tschernobyl disaster of April 26th, 1986. The necessary preparations for the construction of an SOS Children's Village in Borovljany, a small town about 20 km from the capital, Minsk, were made in co-operation with the charity foundation "Children of Tschernobyl". The first families were able to move into their new homes by the middle of 1995. There is an SOS Social Centre attached to the SOS Children's Village, which offers children suffering from radiation damage, from all over Belarus, accommodation for the duration of their out-patient treatment.
The second SOS Children's Village in Belarus, in Marina Gorka, was put into operation in July 2004.
In May 2004 SOS Children's Villages Belarus started to operate Family Strengthening Programmes, which enable children who are at risk of losing the care of their family to grow within a caring family environment. To achieve this, SOS Children's Villages Belarus works directly with families and communities to empower them to effectively protect and care for their children, in cooperation with local authorities and other service providers. Construction works for Belarus' third SOS Children's Village were taken up in December 2007 in the country's third largest city Mogilev.
At present there are two SOS Children's Villages in Belarus, one SOS Youth Facility and six SOS Social Centres (partly family strengthening programmes).
Website of SOS Children's Villages Belarus
(available in German, English and Russian)