Girl wearing glasses holding little cat in her arms in…
It is very much part of the values of this charity to bring up children in their own culture, aware of their country's history. I have been finding out about a celebration in SOS Children's villages Belarus that show this value clearly.
- Lisa
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Girl wearing glasses holding little cat in her arms in Children's Village Borovljany, Belarus.
It is very much part of the values of this charity to bring up children in their own culture, aware of their country's history. I have been finding out about a celebration in SOS Children's villages Belarus that show this value clearly.
I found a report from April 2006 that talks about the festivities after the opening of the third Belarusian children's village in Mogilev. Here is what the report said:On 22 April dozens of little bells in the hands of cadets rang at the cornerstone laying ceremony of the third SOS Children's Village in Belarus. The young cadets rang the bells as a reminder that nobody should forget the Chernobyl catastrophe and to emphasise that the side-effects of this disaster are still present in Belarus today.
Nikolay Chrolovitch, the national director of SOS Children's Villages Belarus, remarked, "There is a need for this third SOS Children's Village as the situation in Belarus has worsened in the last ten years. According to official statistics, in 1995 (when we opened the village in Borovljany) there were 13,000 orphans in Belarus. Today, we have 32,000 orphans."
Mogilev has 365,000 inhabitants and is situated 200 kilometres southwest of Minsk. Mogilev is located approximately 130 kilometres from the Belarusian-Russian border.
In 1995, in Borovljany (near Minsk) the SOS Social Centre Borovljany accommodated people affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe. In the past ten years, the SOS Social Centre has helped 2732 children, including children who already have cancerous problems and get treatment at the neighbouring cancer clinic, or children who live in contaminated areas. There is also family support in Belarus, helping 148 families with 330 children.
- Mary
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Clapping hands at Children's Village Tlokweng, Botswana.
I have been looking at the growing work of SOS in Botswana since the 1980's it has really come along and now can really help children and families on a scale that is useful.
In 1984 construction started on the first SOS Children's Village in Tlokweng, a small town about 12 km from the capital of Gaborone. When it was completed, the SOS Children's Village consisted of six family houses, a nursery and a chicken farm. Due to the continually increasing demand the SOS Children's Village Tlokweng was extended in 1991 and 1999, first to ten family houses and then to a total of fifteen. The reason for the extensions was that the orphan situation in Botswana was proving to be ever-more difficult. Also, the ever-increasing number of people with AIDS meant that there was going to be a dramatic increase in the number of orphans in the country. Over the years the need for suitable accommodation for the young adults who were outgrowing the SOS Children's Village also arose and so, between 1993 and 1995, two youth houses were constructed, one on the site of the SOS Children's Village and the other in Gabarone itself.Local support meant that in 1997 it was possible to add two simple vocational training centres for the youths to the SOS Children's Village. Courses in carpentry, welding, home-economics and craft industries are offered here. In the same year, we built a second SOS Children's Village in Francistown, in the north of Botswana, which started operating in 1998.
At present there are three SOS Children's Villages in Botswana, two SOS Facilities for young adults, three SOS nurseries and two SOS Social Centres.
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