Herman Gmeiner, an Austrian philanthropist, established the first SOS Children's Village in Austria. At present, this is active in over 132 countries and has been present in India since 1963. SOS Children's Villages take action by providing abandoned children facilities and programmes that will benefit them. Working in the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Children, SOS - India promotes these rights through its unique family based care model across 22 states in India through two key programmes:
Family Based Care (FBC)
The SOS Children's Village model is based on four principles - the SOS mother, the sisters and brothers, the family house and the SOS Children's Village - forming the basis and the framework of the concept. FBC, is a curative programme which reaches out to over 6,500 abandoned children in India. Each children's village has 12-15 family homes, with every home consisting of 10 children on an average, with their SOS mother in a family house. All round development including education, nutrition, health and psychological development is taken care of till the children are settled in their lives.
Family Strengthening Programme (FSP)
FSP, a preventive community intervention programme, covers over 17,000 children at 33 locations across India, and is supported by local partners and communities. Designed to prevent children from losing parental care or from being abandoned, this programme runs in slums and rural areas, within a 30 km radius of an SOS Children's Village. The beneficiaries of this programme are widows, single women, and below poverty line families. Spanning 3 to 5 years, the programme aims to enable families to become self-reliant.
The Government of India has appreciated the work of SOS Children's Villages of India and has recommended it to other organizations in the country to follow this model.
To know more about SOS, please visit http://www.soschildrensvillages.in/
SOS-India deserves a Standing Ovation for its work!
To read complete issue click here
|
The ELS Lotus logo is trademark of Empowered Learning Systems Pvt. Ltd.