Santo is located at a distance of about 15 km from the capital of Port-au-Prince, on the road to the Dominican Republic. The name "Santo" comes from a former sugar cane plantation from colonial days. The SOS Children's Village opened its doors in 1984. The official inauguration took place on 17 April 1985 in the presence of SOS Children's Villages' founder Hermann Gmeiner. SOS Children's Village Santo consists of 19 family houses, the village director's house, an aunts' (family helper's) house, a community house with various multi-purpose rooms, an infirmary and an SOS Hermann Gmeiner Primary and Secondary School. The SOS Children's Village provides a new home for up to 190 children. All family houses on the 9-hectare building site have their own garden, and about 4 hectares of the property are used for agricultural purposes. The SOS Youth Facility consists of youth communities, which are set up according to need.
The SOS Hermann Gmeiner School is attended both by children from the surrounding area and from the SOS Children's Village. The Primary and Secondary School has a good reputation and therefore helps to increase the local acceptance of SOS Children's Villages. Since 2005, the SOS Children's Village has been running two SOS Social Centres. One of them houses a child day-care centre where up to 90 children from the local community are looked after while their parents are working. Apart from that, there are different workshops for women, family and community empowerment. Another SOS Social Centre organises childminding programmes in Santo, integrating several hundred families. These measures of family strengthening help to prevent poverty and child abandonment.