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Sponsor a Child in Africa

Sponsor a Child in Need 

A CONTINENT OF DIVERSITY AND VARIETY

Hunger, HIV / AIDS, wars: Countless children in Africa have to grow up without parents and in poverty. The SOS Children's Villages have been providing urgently needed help in Africa for more than 40 years. As early as 1971, the first children's village on the African continent was built in Abobo-Gare in Ivory Coast. Djibouti is the youngest country where the SOS Children's Villages became active. SOS helps in 46 African countries.

Africa’s unimaginable size ensures that things vary region by region, country by country, community by community. As a result, there is not one Africa – it is a region known for its variety and diversity in terms of everything from climate to culture to individual experiences.  

However, of the 18 countries around the world where poverty is currently rising, 14 are in Africa, according to a 2018 report by the Brookings Institute. Projections show that if current trends continue, Africa will be home to 90% of the world’s poorest people by 2030. This is a continent where the majority of the world’s natural resources are found but instability and a lack of infrastructure have prevented their excavation. This is now being cruelly exploited, foreign government and conglomerates building local essential infrastructure with the payment extracted in-kind.

 

WHAT CHILDREN FACE: BARRIERS TO EMPOWERMENT

Much work remains to be done with regard to education and empowerment in Africa, for instance, 10.5 million children don’t attend school. 11 million children under the age of 14 are forced to perform child labor. On the other side of the continent, children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are clearly the most vulnerable group in the bloody civil war that is still raging. The country has one of the largest numbers of child soldiers in Africa.

Across large section of the continent many children are denied the joy of childhood and an education. They are barred from empowering themselves, crippled by poverty.

A Unique Solution for Every Child: Our Work in Africa  

The extent to which children are empowered, the access to medical care, the local infrastructure, and the level of governmental support and stability are among the factors that determine how SOS Children’s Villages in Africa responds on the national, local, familial and individual levels.

 

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT: BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS

 

SOS is investing in Africa for the long term, building schools in the communities, where SOS villages are located, and empowering young people to learn about their rights and to later become their own advocates. We strive to build leaders of the future by giving youth the tools to handle adversity in all its forms, and we work not just within SOS villages but within the larger community as well.  

 

To prepare SOS alumni for employment success, we partner with national and local associations to offer mentoring and a variety of programs that enable youth to acquire the hard and soft skills required for today’s – and tomorrow’s – job market. In some areas, entrepreneurship training might be key; in others, training in local industries might be more beneficial; in still others, computer and language skills might be the most advantageous skills to have.  

 

EMERGENCY RESPONSE: HELPING PEOPLE WHO HAVE LOST EVERYTHING 

 

Some of our most urgent work in Africa is related to responding to disasters, whether human-caused or natural. Over the years, SOS Children’s Villages has developed the know-how, and the local foundations to quickly respond to large-scale humanitarian disasters. 

 

Whether drought, conflict, epidemics or other dire situations, disasters have a disproportionate effect on children and families. We currently maintain 10 emergency response programs in Africa, helping people who have lost everything and have nowhere else to turn.

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