Give children hope and a future

A child or village sponsorship is a recurring financial donation made by an individual, organisation or company, in which the funds are set aside for the specific purpose of supporting the children in the SOS Children’s Villages on a long-term basis.

As a child sponsor you follow your sponsored child on her or his journey through childhood and into an independent life. As a village sponsor you will follow all the children and their everyday life in a village.

Although you cannot choose a specific child, you are welcome to inform us about any wishes concerning age, gender or location and we will do our best to fulfil your requests.

Taking on a sponsorship is a voluntary commitment and not a binding contract. Our aim is to build lasting relationships with our sponsors and guarantee financial support for the children in our programmes as well as the supporting facilities. The children in our care leave the international sponsorship programme when they move from the village or at the latest when they turn 23 years old.

Your sponsorship contribution goes towards covering the living costs of the children in an SOS Children’s Village. Your support helps us meet their daily needs, and guarantees that they receive quality medical care and education.

When quality schools and medical centres are not available in the surrounding community, we build them. As such, many SOS Children’s Villages have supporting facilities such as SOS kindergartens, SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools, SOS social centres and SOS medical centres. Children living with their biological families in the surrounding communities may then also benefit from SOS schools and health services.

In addition, your contributions may go to helping support an SOS family strengthening programme. These programmes help struggling families in the community, as a means to prevent family breakdown and child abandonment.

We would like to inform our sponsors and donors that 20% of your donation or sponsorship contribution goes towards administrative costs.

You are a key stakeholder in ensuring that sensitive information about your sponsored child is not shared with third parties outside your immediate family or circle of friends. We kindly ask you not to publish pictures or information about your sponsored child or family on Facebook or any other social media.

A child’s right to privacy and the need to observe data protection laws are paramount. This means that sensitive information about a child’s background will never be included on our website or print materials without changing the child’s name. It is also essential to protect the dignity of sponsored children, by not putting their lives on show to the public.