What are your global achievements?

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 406.

Please tell us about the beginning. How did it all start?

Lilia, let's start with some general information about your organization. What is SOS children's village?

Lesson 3, Ex.3b

- First of all I'd like to thank you for your interest in SOS Children's Villages. We are an independent, non-governmental international charity organisation which has been working to meet the needs and protect the interests and rights of children since 1949. We work for children who are orphaned, abandoned or whose families are unable to care for them.

- Well, Medical student Hermann Gmeiner, a native Austrian, was a soldier in Russia during the Second World War. He had experienced the horrors of war himself, and then was confronted with the isolation and suffering of the many war orphans and homeless children after the end of the war. The young man, who grew up in a farming family and lost one of his parents at an early age, was shocked at how those children are pushed aside and kept “out of sight". He was certain that help can only be effective if every child can grow up in a family or in a family-like environment. With a small amount of money (about 40 $) Hermann Gmeiner established the SOS Children's Village Association in 1949.

- Since its founding in 1949, SOS Children's Villages has expanded to 500 villages in 132 countries. We are currently raising over 80,000 children in our villages and through our many education, family strengthening, medical, and outreach programmes, we change the lives of over 1 million people each year.