SOS Children's Villages Eswatini cares for children who have lost parental care, or are at risk of losing it, and works to keep families together.
Part of a global federation working in 134 countries and territories, 45 of them in Africa.
SOS Children's Villages is a non-governmental social development organisation founded by Hermann Gmeiner in 1949 in Imst, Austria. “SOS” stands for Societas Socialis, a social club formed to raise funds for children orphaned and displaced by the Second World War. To its founders, it meant a socially responsible society.
Gmeiner believed that every child deserves a mother, brothers and sisters, a home and a supportive community. That belief still shapes our work today, in the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We are non-governmental and non-denominational. We respect all religions and cultures.
Every child belongs to a family and grows with love, respect and security.
We build families for children in need, we help them shape their own futures, and we share in the development of their communities.
We ensure communities have self-sustaining households that provide quality care for every child.
Short films from SOS Children's Villages Eswatini on the children, families and communities we work with.
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Empowered communities, stronger families, brighter futures.
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Every child connected, every community stronger.
Choose your batonFrom one village outside Mbabane to three villages and community programmes across the Kingdom.
Hermann Gmeiner opens the first SOS Children's Village in Imst, Austria, for children orphaned and displaced by the Second World War.
SOS Children's Villages begins supporting children, young people and families in Mbabane.
Our first village is officially opened on 29 June 1990 in the presence of His Majesty King Mswati III.
Our second village, in the Shiselweni region, is officially opened on 27 September 2002 by representatives of His Majesty King Mswati III.
Our third village, in Ka'Langa in the Lubombo region, is built on land donated by the Government of Eswatini, with a kindergarten, medical centre and primary school serving the surrounding community.
73,224 programme participants and 17,804 families reached through family-like care, family strengthening, kinship and foster care, youth skilling and more.
In each village, children who cannot live with their own families grow up in a family house with an SOS mother, brothers and sisters.
Hhohho · Since 1990
Our first village, about six kilometres from the centre of the capital, in the Highveld.
Shiselweni · Since 2002
About 90 km south of Mbabane.
Lubombo
In Ka'Langa, about seven kilometres from Siteki, on land donated by the Government of Eswatini.
We prevent family breakdown, and we care for children who have already lost parental care.
See all our programmes: foster, kinship, emergency, short-stay, special needs and medical care
Our programmes reach families in and around Mbabane, Nhlangano, Siteki and Manzini.
Our work is anchored in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognises the family as “the fundamental group of society and natural environment for the growth and well-being of children.”
The family approach means each child has a caring parent, lives with brothers and sisters, enjoys a real sense of security and belonging, and grows up in a community where families support one another.
All of our work is made possible by sponsors and donors, institutional and corporate partners, and loyal friends in Eswatini and around the world. Your help is needed too.
Passing the Baton for Future Generations
What we give today can become opportunity for a child. What we strengthen today can become stability for a family. What we build today can become resilience for a community. And what we pass forward today can help shape the Eswatini our children inherit tomorrow.