SOS Children's villages first appeared in Austria in 1949. The war left many children orphaned and many women alone. That is when the SOS model of parenting was born: a professional mother – the so-called SOS mother, raises children left without parental care. The family lives in a separate house and usually includes 5 to 8 children of different ages.

The abbreviation SOS in the name is not a disaster signal, but an abbreviation of 'social support'. The first SOS villages were built with broad help from local communities: people were asked to donate one shilling only. But there were so many contributors that this was enough.

It was a hard time with too many orphans and with too few families who could adopt them. Thus, SOS children's villages became the only possible alternative to orphanages. Exactly at that time, first scientific studies appeared which proved that bringing children up in institutions – without parents – irrevocably breaks their psyche.

“Public” parenting does not give a child the most important ability - the ability for love and affection. A normal person should be able to build relationships with loved ones and to create a family. Not by accident, people brought up in children's homes often give their children to orphanages. The child needs a "significant adult", a mother, and not temporary caregivers.

Therefore, SOS children's villages are based on the following principles:

• Every child grows and develops in a caring family environment.
  The child's interests are given priority. The program of training and development of each child is individual.

• Each child is involved in solving personal and family problems. His opinion is important and primary.
  The child is integrated into society and learns to interact with it, going into adulthood prepared and confident in their abilities and knowledge.

• Each family in the SOS Children's village is a part of the local community, under social support of the charity organization.

A professional mother is a difficult life choice: life and work "in one bottle". It requires serious moral strength and long training – a school for foster parents, then a training course in SOS Children's village… However, such a mother can work even with ‘tough’ children, with teenagers, with groups of siblings who were separated in orphanages before.

The work of a professional mother is impossible without the help of professionals to support and rehabilitate tough, deeply traumatized children. Therefore, Children's villages also have support services consisting of psychologists, teachers and social work specialists.

Today we serve more than 550 children living in 6 Children's villages in different Russian regions.

We also help foster families, living both in and outside of Children's villages. We go through all the stages together with them: from preparing for the placement of a child in a family till the moment of leaving the foster family for independent life.

And we work with families in difficult life situations, if there is a threat of leaving children without parental care. We help them to overcome the crisis, ensuring prevention of social orphanhood. During several years of prevention we have saved mother families for more than 14,000 children.

The SOS Children’s Village in Pushkin, the first SOS Children’s Village in North-West Russia, was set up 20 years ago with funds from private individuals and companies from 8 European countries: Belgium, Britain, Germany, Holland, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden.  Today, 85 children, aged 4-23 years old, live and are brought up in 10 families homes and SOS Youth Facility in St. Petersburg. SOS CV Pushkin cooperate with IWC St. Petersburg more than 8 years.

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For further information, please contact: Elena Milokhova, Corporate Fundraising Adviser | E-mail: elena.milokhova@sos-dd.org. Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and VK