Orphans, World Orphan Week, and SOS Children’s Villages

Unfortunately, orphanhood and its related issues are not widely covered in our media, and many Canadians are not even aware of the scope of the problem.

Some of this may be because the term “orphan” is not terribly easily defined.  UNICEF (the best source of stats on this issue) defines an orphan as anyone aged 0-17 who has lost 1 parent. Using this definition there are over 130 million orphans globally, but more than 116 million of them still have a living parent.  Considering that this does not reflect what most Canadians interpret the term to mean, we are using UNICEF's stats for "double orphans" - meaning both parents have passed away.  Using this definition there are approximately 14 million orphans world wide, with the vast majority living in sub-Saharan Africa (approx 9 million).  There is more information on this in the "orphan issues" section.

About World Orphan Week

While more than 2% of children in sub-Saharan Africa have no living parents, and many people in Canada are not even aware of this issue, SOS is calling on those who are aware of the scope and magnitude of the orphan crisis to Lend Their Voice during World Orphan Week.  Those who are aware of this very important cause can help orphaned children around the world by volunteering to raise awareness and funds for their needs. World Orphan Week is about the volunteers participating to make it a success, and about the millions upon millions of orphaned and abandoned children these volunteers are working to support through their initiatives.

Because World Orphan Week is a volunteer-led event, donors to our volunteer fundraisers can be sure that 100% of all funds received during this week go directly to SOS Children's Villages, the world's largest NGO focusing specifically on addressing the needs of orphaned and abandoned children.

About SOS Children’s Villages

SOS Children's Villages provides homes and families to orphaned and abandoned children.  All children in our care are raised by an SOS mother who cares for the children as her very own.  Each SOS family consists of 6-10 children (and their SOS mom) who grow up together as siblings.  Children are provided with their material needs (food, water and shelter), developmental needs (school, medical care, vocational training, and life-skills), and their emotional needs (the opportunity to be a part of a family again, to work through the grief of losing their parents in a secure and caring environment, and to feel that they belong). 

SOS is currently raising over 67,000 children in more than 475 SOS Villages in 132 countries.  SOS is supporting another 254,000 at-risk children and their families through our Family Strengthening Programs - these include programs such as micro-credit and food security.

SOS Canada is looking to increase its support to many, many more orphaned and abandoned children, but for this to happen we need first of all for Canadians to become more informed about the number and needs of the worlds orphaned and abandoned children, and we hope that World Orphan Week 2008 will be an integral part of this.

 Click HERE to get involved and help make a difference!