1.4 Our expertise

MISSION

A strong family for every child

We strengthen families and communities so children can grow up in safety, with selfrespect, love and opportunities, and we create families for children who have lost their parents or who can no longer (temporarily) live at home safely. So that children can develop and shape their own future.

VISION

A strong family is the key to a bright future

Family is the best foundation for a child’s development and recovery. It is the continuity, stability, unconditional care and loving attention that ensure the child’s healthy development. And with that, a bright future. 2. Education and Youth Employment

Education provides the path to opportunities for the future. In association with local partners we apply our expertise in a results-oriented approach in order to fulfil the dreams for the future of children and young people, using a robust and supportive family base. We do so by helping them break the vicious circle of vulnerability, and by offering them the prospect of a future in which they can look after themselves and their children. We achieve this by: • Making quality education accessible to all children; • Offering young people the opportunity to gain relevant, practical knowledge and experience and to work on their personal skills, to increase their chance of success on the labour market. 3. Humanitarian response and emergency aid

Children are the most vulnerable in crisis situations. These are times when you need your family most and when the rights of the child must be upheld. Our humanitarian programmes specialise in care and protection for children and keeping families together. Due to our strong local organisation and our existing facilities, we effectively implement emergency aid and can subsequently help with the rebuilding process. After all, we are already there and will remain there long-term. Our activities largely focus on:

• Care for children who are unaccompanied or who have been separated from their parents; • Psychosocial support to aid trauma processing; • Education, care, sport and play in our child-friendly spaces; • Care in temporary care centres; • Family reunification.

4. Advocacy

Building on our 70 years of international experience, SOS Children’s Villages speaks out with and for children and young people to protect their rights at the global, regional and national levels. Our advocacy activities focus on changing policy and practices to improve existing national child and family care systems. The rights, needs and interests of the child are paramount in everything we do. We empower children and young people and support them in speaking out, in participating: we give them a voice.

We advocate • For social protection in order to keep families together, so that children are not separated from their parents unnecessarily and are not damaged; • For quality care, so that children receive care aligned to their individual needs and the local situation.

1.4 OUR EXPERTISE – AN EVOLVING ORGANISATION

In the seven decades that SOS Children’s Villages International has been supporting children and young people worldwide who have lost their parental care or risk doing so, we have gained extensive knowledge and experience in how we can prevent families from breaking up and how we can best care for children who have to fend for themselves or who can no longer grow up safely in their own family.

Over the years, the needs and requirements of the people and communities in which we are active change too. It means that our organisation must continuously assess our programmes and adapt them where necessary in order to provide optimal quality, results, efficiency and relevance for the children, young people, families and communities we support. By evolving, we can fulfil our promises to children and young people today, and in the future.

We actively share the knowledge and experience we possess. So that we can help more people by working together.

Distinctive capability

We have partly acquired our insights by always listening to the children and young people, by showing a genuine interest and by ‘simply’ being there for them. Our SOS mothers and fathers, social workers and staff are trained to understand and effectively deal with the traumas these children have suffered, and to provide them with the care and attention they need. We examine each child’s specific situation and environment so that every child and young person gets the support he or she really needs.