SOS Children's Villages and SOS mothers

Your support has allowed us to give a loving mother and a family home to many children who would otherwise have grown up alone. Help us provide what every child needs by giving monthly to SOS Children, holding a fundraising event, or taking out a child sponsorship today.

SOS Children's Villages - a unique approach

All over the world, family members step in when children lose the care of their parents. But when chronic poverty, and diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, and TB are commonplace, well-established support networks are overwhelmed. Children with nobody else to care for them can with the help of our supporters get a new loving home in an SOS Children's Village.

Our SOS Children's Villages give every child:

• An SOS mother - a fully dedicated local woman who creates a loving home
• brothers and sisters - each family consists of up to ten children, including boys and girls of different ages; natural brothers and sisters are never separated
• a house - in the local style; each Children's Village consists of 10-15 family houses
• a village - a safe community in which to grow up.

Children remain in the Children's Village until they are self-sufficient and ready for independent life.

New loving homes for children in Chipata, Zambia

In Chipata, the main town in Zambia's Eastern province, rural-urban migration has seen the population grow. HIV infection rates have risen and there is a particularly high rate of family breakdown and child abandonment. Around 1 in 6 of all children in Chipata have lost a parent. Chipata will be the home of a new SOS Children's Village with 13 family houses, due to open its doors to 130 children in 2012.

Faith and Peter's story

We already care for nearly 600 children and young people in our three SOS Children's Villages in Zambia. Two of them are Faith and Peter, biological siblings whose lives were changed when they came to the SOS Children's Village in Kitwe.

Faith and her brother Peter were identified by social workers during an assessment of their village, Itimpi near to Kitwe. At eight years old, Peter was left in charge of Faith, aged four, while their aunt who was their guardian went out to work as a maid. Faith was tiny for her age - malnourished, underweight and covered in open sores. She could not walk or talk, or even sit up unaided. The social workers discussed the matter with the aunt and they agreed it was best to take the children to the SOS Children's Village where they could find a home and have access to medical treatment.

When they arrived at SOS Children's Village Kitwe they were welcomed by Grace Kamweke, their SOS mother. She immediately took the children in, bathed them, cut their hair and fed them. After being at the SOS Children's Village for a few weeks Faith began to put on weight, regained her appetite and energy, and started to recover. She learned to walk and soon to talk. Now in grade two, Faith is at just the same stage as all her friends in the class. No one would ever guess at her life story. Thanks to our supporters, the SOS Children's Village in Kitwe is giving Faith a future with as much hope as any other child.

Help SOS Children in Chipata

If you would like to help us do the same for children in Chipata please learn how to help SOS Children's Village Chipata.