What are sponsorships?
What percent is used to raise my sponsor child?
How long does my sponsorship last?
How do I change my personal details?
What are "supporting facilities"?
How can I make occasional extra donations? (Birthday gift)
What do we do to protect the privacy of children?
Can I get a receipt for my sponsorship?
How many sponsors does a child have?
Can my sponsored child complete further education in Canada?
Do children receive financial support after leaving the village?
A child sponsorship is an earmarked financial contribution made regularly by an individual donor or an organisation/company as a means of supporting children on a long-term basis.
More than 500,000 people, mostly children, in 132 countries and territories benefit from SOS Children's Villages and supporting facilities.
Sponsors, through their regular contributions, help ensure the organisation's financial stability and the children's well-being, education and integration into their local community. Money is earmarked to support a particular SOS Children's Village and the sponsor is provided one child's story from the village to follow the progess of the village.
A child sponsorship costs $33 Canadian per month.
For sponsorships of a child or village, 82.5% makes it to the child for raising your sponsored child to independence and living in the community. This is a predetermined percentage that is guaranteed by our board of directors.
100% of sponsorship gifts (birthday gifts) are sent to the child's gift fund which helps your sponsor child with gifts while in the SOS Village and as a hand up as they leave the care of SOS Children's Villages.
Your sponsorship lasts as long as you want it to. Although it is our aim to establish a long-term relationship with our sponsors, you are able to cancel for whatever reason whenever you want, without giving notice. You can cancel your sponsorship either by using the contact us link, or by telephone at 1-800-767-5111
If you would like to change your contact information you can by using the
update information form. If you need to update your banking or credit card information, don't worry it is a secure form.
The supporting facilities are all the facilities that are based around the SOS Children's Village itself. These can be kindergartens, SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools, vocational training centres, social centres, medical centres etc. Supporting facilities are not only open to SOS Children's Village children and youths, but also to the local community.
All donations are welcome and you can make a donation, simply click on "donate today" and fill in the on-line form. If this is a birthday gift for your child we suggest a modest amount less than $30. Please mention in preferences that you would like this donation to provide your sponsored child a birthday gift.
Often import duties and shipping exceed the costs of gifts from Canada, so we prefer donations that can purchase gifts locally, and provide the economic impact, where it is needed most.
The children's right to privacy and the need to observe data protection laws are paramount.
We do not and request sponsors do not make public an individual child's need for help.
This is why you will not see children's photos, real names, and locations listed on our website. Where we have photos of children, we have changed their names and/or villages.
Privacy and respect, important for both children and sponsors.
Yes, we provide Canadian Tax Reciepts once a year for your personal tax purposes. If you are a resident of the USA or the United Kingdom, you can sponsor a child with the national association and receive the tax treatment of your residence.
To ensure that the living costs (food, clothes, schooling and vocational training, medical care, free-time activities, co-worker pay etc.) are covered, SOS Children's Village children usually have between five and seven sponsors from different countries.
$1 a day is not enough to provide a living, as well as a life for an orphan child with no other resources.
SOS-Kinderdorf International offers help for SOS children/youths to help themselves. Therefore we try to help SOS children to complete training in their own countries so that they are available as welltrained potential employees in that country.
In some cases, further education is possible abroad, as long as the particular course is not available in the home country. Visits abroad for educational reasons should, in principle, be discussed with the National Director or Regional Office.
There should also be a proper assessment to check if the youth has both sufficient ability and interest for the course, and whether he/she fulfils the minimum linguistic requirements. For many youths, it is difficult to deal with the cultural differences, both on leaving and returning to the homeland.
Currently there are more than 15 youths from SOS Children's Villages studying and/or on working terms in Canada. SOS Children's Villages Canada helps support these youths financially and emotionally.
On leaving the SOS Children's Village facility the children/youths are paid the money that has been saved up for them either as a lump sum or in instalments.
The salary on beginning a job is in many countries so low that it does not cover all living costs. In these cases, SOS Children's Villages makes an additional financial contribution, to help the youth in starting an independent life.
SOS Children's Villages has started the "head start program" to help young people. This offers former SOS Children's Village children who want to run their own small business loans at a low rate of interest with flexible forms of repayment. We hope this sounds much like what biological parents do to help their children for life.