The town of Siem Reap is situated only a few kilometres from the famous temples of Angkor, which are Cambodia's greatest tourist attraction. The remains of the ancient City of Temples are spread over an area of almost 500 sq. km between the fertile low plains near Tonle Sap (the Great Lake) and the drier, densely forested highlands of the Phnom Koulen hills. The more than one hundred temples were built between the 9th and the 13th centuries. Hidden from the world for centuries, first by the jungle and then by civil war, Angkor was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992.
SOS Children's Village Angkor/Siem Reap is located on the main road to the City of Temples. It consists of fourteen family houses, the village director's house, staff accommodation and the necessary administrative buildings.
There is also an SOS Kindergarten and an SOS Hermann Gmeiner School. The kindergarten consists of six classrooms where up to 120 children can be taught, while the school has twelve classrooms, laboratories, a library and a canteen. The school provides primary and secondary education to a maximum of 500 pupils. Both kindergarten and school are open to children from the neighbourhood.
An SOS Youth Facility was opened in 2005. Older boys from the SOS Children's Village normally move to the SOS Youth Facility when they start a vocational training course or go on to higher education. With the support of qualified youth workers, they develop realistic perspectives for their future, learn to shoulder responsibility and increasingly make their own decisions. They are encouraged to develop team spirit and build up contacts with relatives and friends, as well as with the relevant authorities and potential employers.
The SOS Vocational Training Centre, which was opened in September 2004, specialises in crafts and provides training to up to 45 youngsters in its four workshops (electrical training, plumbing, carpentry and mechanics). Through the SOS Vocational Training Centres, SOS Children's Villages is trying to offer the youths fair starting possibilities so that they can become independent and so that they are able to cope with the social and economic demands made on them.