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Sponsor a Child in Eastern Europe
In Eastern Europe we currently care for over 2,000 sponsored children in 38 SOS Children's Villages. About 30,000 people are supported through education projects, such as SOS Schools, and community based projects, such as Family Strengthening Programmes and the SOS Playbus schemes.
SOS Eastern European Child Sponsorship
Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe with an average daily income of about £3.00. At present, SOS Children support over 850 people in Albania through one SOS Children's Village, one SOS Youth Home, one SOS Nursery School, one SOS School and two SOS Family Strengthening Programmes.
We have been working in Belarus since 1986. The Chernobyl disaster made a safe home for orphaned children a necessity. Now there are three SOS Children's Villages in the country.
Whilst having recovered well, Bosnia & Herzegovina still suffers from the conflict that afflicted the country in the 1990s. We have rebuilt two nurseries in Mostar that were destroyed during the war. We have two SOS Children's Villages in the country, one in the capital Sarajevo, the other in the northern town of Gracanica.
We started work in Bulgaria in the town of Trjavna, in 1995. Since then, a second SOS Children's Village was opened in Dren, about 28 miles south of the capital Sofia.
At present there are two SOS Children's Villages in Croatia, two SOS Youth Homes and one SOS Nursery. One Village is located near to the capital Zagreb, in Lekenik, the other is in the east of the country in Ladimirevci.
SOS Children began discussions with representatives of Northern Cyprus in 1989. There was no clear policy on child care and the SOS Children method has provided a model for the reform of child care. The only SOS Children's projects on the island are in the capital, Nicosia, known locally as Lefkosa to the Turks and Lefkosia to the Greeks. Nicosia is the only divided capital city in the world.
We currently have three SOS Children's Villages in Czech Republic. These are located in Doubi, Chvalčov and Medlánky.
Our work in Estonia currently features one SOS Children's Village in Keila, near Tallinn, one SOS Youth Home, one SOS Nursery and three SOS Social Centres.
Greece is home to two SOS Children's Villages, in Plagiari and Vari. A third is currently being built in Thrace.
There are currently three SOS Children's Villages in Hungary, in Koszeg, Kecskemét and Battonya. We have been working in the country since 1986.
Latvia, on the Baltic Sea, is home to two SOS Children's Villages, in Valmeira and Islice. The country has recovered well since Communism collapsed.
We have one SOS Children's Village in Lithuania, in the capital Vilnius. This village was opened to new children in 2001.
Macedonia FYR
One SOS Children's Village has been operating in Macedonia, since we started working there in 2000. It is in the capital, Skopje.
There are three SOS Children's Villages in Romania. One is located in the small town of Cisnadie, near Sibiu, one in Hemeius, and one in the capital Bucharest. On top of this, we run several programmes for the wider community, such as an SOS Playbus in Bucharest.
In Russia there are currently four SOS Children's Villages. All four Villages have the advantage of good infrastructure and the children attend local public nurseries and schools. Planning is under way for two more Villages to be constructed in Russia in the near future.
At present there are two SOS Children's Villages and one SOS Youth Home in Serbia. The SOS Children's Villages are located in Novi Sad and Kraljevo.
In 2010, the first SOS Children's Village in Ukraine opened in Brovary, near to the capital city Kiev. We first worked in the country in 2003, providing emergency relief to families in the Podol district.
SOS Western Europe Child Sponsorship
As you can see in the map on the left, we do run many SOS Children's Villages in Western Europe, in countries such as Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy.
However, due to the relative prosperity of these countries, we do not generally seek sponsorships here.
Western European countries pay for their own SOS Children's Villages (generally with significant government funding, but with some private charitable donations too).
We suggest that a child sponsorship in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, or the Americas, could be a generous and rewarding alternative.
The Story of SOS Child Sponsorship in Europe
The first SOS Children's Village was opened in the Austrian State of Tyrol. This innovative model was a solution to the poor standards of living of children orphaned after the Second World War.
Long before the fall of the Iron Curtain, people were particularly keen to improve the dramatic situation of abandoned children in the Eastern Bloc. Construction of an SOS Children's Village in Czech Republic marked the beginning in 1970. A village was opened in Hungary in 1986. After the East opened up, Bulgaria (1993), Romania (1993) and Albania (1995) also joined SOS Children.
One of the greatest challenges in Europe was presented by the events and developments in the former Yugoslavia. SOS Children was one of the few aid organisations that was active in the country during the Yugoslav war. We are now present in Bosnia & Herzegovina and in Kosovo. SOS facilities also exist in Serbia and Croatia.
SOS Children also began its work in the Baltics and countries in the former Soviet Union. Particular mention should be given to the Belarusian SOS Children's Village in Minsk, which was built in 1995 in reaction to the Chernobyl disaster. The village includes an SOS Social Centre which is where children with cancer and their parents stay whilst they receive treatment, which often lasts a long time. More than 2,700 children have been treated at the SOS Social Centre over the last decade.
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