Public Foundation “SOS Children’s Villages Kyrgyzstan” is an international non-governmental organisation that has been active in the field of children's rights and committed to children's needs and concerns since 1996 which provides children in need by alternative family and home, based on long-term family type care aimed on gradual guidance of children to independence and autonomy.
Our target group:
- Children lost parental care
- Children at risk of losing parental care
SOS Children’s Villages is active in 132 countries and territories worldwide and has a general vision, mission and values.
As SOS Children’s Villages adhere to an approach where a child is in the center with his/her needs, we render comprehensive services focused on child assure to relevant live standards and education access, as well as advocating for the child rights on the level of biological families and on the level of family based care model.
At present there are two SOS Children’s Villages. The first one is «SOS Children’s Village Bishkek». There are 14 Family Houses, Kindergarten, and other facilities in the village, situated within a circle, which is a symbol of sun. The second one is «SOS Children’s Village Cholpon Ata», is located on the shore of Issyk Kul Lake. Altogether there are 143 children under the care of both SOS Children’s Villages (while admission process, some children were new born) these children are children in need of family care. Hermann Gmeiner School is SOS school teaching in Kyrgyz language. There are at present about 479 children; among them there are SOS children, children from the community and there are children from vulnerable families. There are also four SOS Youth Facilities, in which 67 youths older then 15 are taken care. In both SOS Children’s Villages there are Kindergartens, attended both by SOS children and children from the local community, including children from vulnerable families. There are 169 children in both kindergartens.
In Cholpon Ata town, since April 2006 a new pilot project was established. It is called Family Strengthening Project in Cholpon Ata, and it is aimed to support needy families to take care on their children independently to prevent child abandonment and sending children to institutions. Nowadays the project covers about 250 children at risk of abandonment. In April 2007 the same Family Strengthening Project was established in Bishkek in cooperation with Republic Rehabilitation Centre for Homeless children. At present there are about 300 children-beneficiaries.
At the end of 2006 a new pilot project aimed on development the quality of education in public school and kindergartens at two municipal Kindergartens and secondary school was launched in Cholpon Ata. The number of total children-beneficiaries is 1292. The main idea was strengthening a potential of mentioned educational facilities. Within the project, we are helping to public School and two public Kindergartens by means of repair, purchasing school books, personal computers and the other didactic materials. Besides, educators and school teachers of primary school are provided with the training in accordance with Step by Step program. Our certified teachers from Hermann Gmeiner School provide this training.
SOS Children’s Villages Kyrgyzstan today is a long term model of family type care for already abandoned children. And for children, who can lose parental care, we have Family Strengthening Projects to prevent child abandonment. At present SOS Children’s Villages function because of constant donations of million people around the world, who are not indifferent to lives of children.