SOS Children's Villages of India

SOS Children's Villages of India is an independent, non-governmental, social development organisation that provides family-based care for parentless or abandoned children in India. The organization is over 50 years old in India and it advocates the concerns, rights and needs of children in need of care and protection. There are two flagship programmes that form the core of the organization. The first being the Family Based Care (FBC), a curative program of SOS Children's Villages of India, that reaches out to over 6700 girls and boys in 32 children's villages across India. Each village has 12 -15 Family Homes, with every home consisting of 10 children on an average along with an SOS mother. All round development including education, nutrition, health and psychological development is taken care of till the children are settled in their lives. In addition to the Children's Villages that form the core of SOS Children's Villages of India's work, the organization runs a whole gamut of programmes and facilities in support of socially disadvantaged and impoverished families to help them lead a decent life in the long-term. Family Strengthening Program (FSP) is one such programme which aims to support families and communities to develop their capacity to effectively protect and care for their children, so that children are able to grow within a caring family environment and are prevented from being abandoned. Spanning 3 to 5 years, the program aims to enable families to move out of the vicious cycle of poverty towards greater dignity and self-reliance by ensuring education of children and income generating capacity development of the care givers.