Nepal - Overview 

Capital: Kathmandu
Area: 147,181 km²
Population: 28.9 million (July 2010 est.)
Ethnic groups: Indo-Nepalese, Tibeto-Nepalese
Official language(s): Nepali
Religion(s): Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam
Currency: 1 Nepalese rupee = 100 paisa

SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country

Whilst he was visiting Nepal in 1968, Hermann Gmeiner, the founder of the SOS Children's Villages, met the Nepalese Princess, Princep Shah. She was very impressed with the SOS Children's Village idea. The result was that one year later the SOS Children's Village association of Nepal was founded under her patronage and with Princess Sharada Shah as chairperson. The fact that the Nepalese royal family actively supported the SOS Children's Village work right from the start had a very positive effect on the development of the work there.

In 1973 the first families were able to move into SOS Children's Village Sanothimi, which lies close to the capital of Kathmandu. This SOS Children's Village turned out to be the model on which many other SOS Children's Village facilities in Nepal were based. The first SOS Hermann Gmeiner School was also built in Sanothimi (1973), where children and youths are able to receive a broad education, as well as the first SOS Youth Facility (1983), where youths could be helped on their way to living on their own and supported in finding jobs. In 1982, the range of subjects taught was increased by the addition of an SOS Vocational Training Centre.

Today, this federal democratic republic in the Himalayas is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Because of the terrible economic standards and lack of medical facilities, the SOS Social Centres, in which mainly children from the neighbourhoods are cared for during the day and given medical treatment, play a vital role in providing help for the people there. The first SOS Social Centre went into operation in Surkhet in 1988.

There has also been an excellent collaboration between SOS Children's Villages and the exiled Tibetan community since the 1970s. In order to provide a home for a group of 32 Tibetan refugee children who had arrived in the Pokhara valley, a first house was built in Pokhara-Chhorepatan in 1975. Over the years this has developed into one of the largest SOS Children's Village projects in the country. It now also includes the "Namgyal Higher Secondary School", the only higher secondary school for Tibetans in Nepal, which was opened in 1988 in Gokarna near Kathmandu.

In March 2005 SOS Children’s Villages started to operate Family Strengthening Programmes, which enables children who are at risk of losing the care of their family to grow within a caring family environment. To achieve this, SOS Children’s Villages works directly with families and communities to empower them to effectively protect and care for their children, in cooperation with local authorities and other service providers.

At present there are nine SOS Children's Villages in Nepal, eight SOS Youth Facilities, eight SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools, three SOS Vocational Training Centres, eight SOS Social Centres with family-strengthening programmes and one SOS Medical Centre.