History of the Civil Society: SOS Children Village - Macedonia

Three years of creating homes for the children

Last month, the civic association SOS Children Village - Macedonia celebrated their third anniversary. The association was established in November 200 as an equal member of the "SOS Kinderdorf International", an organization that has members from 131 countries in the world.

The association works in the field of organizing the work of SOS children villages, SOS youth houses and SOS Herman Gmeiner social centres.

The idea of the SOS children villages is to provide families for the children with "mothers", "brothers" and "sisters". It provides shelter for homeless children, who get stable homes and a feeling of belonging to a family. The initiator of this noble organization is the Austrian Herman Gmeiner, who founded the first SOS children village in Imst, Austria in 1949. Today, there are 439 SOS children villages that operate in the world, inhabited with more than 430.000 children.

The first SOS village in Macedonia started working in May 2002 in the Skopje settlement Cento. It has 12 family houses and five additional facilities. It provides home for 139 children. In every house, there is a family, consisting of seven children and one mother who replaces their biological mother.

For more detailed information regarding the work of this association and the ways in which the interested ones can help or get involved in the work of the SOS children village, call 02/313-9614 or send an e-mail to: editor@sos-kd.org.mk , or visit the web-site: www.childrenvillages.org.